'Then after all you are disappointed in her, and don't lament, like Markham, that she is not mistress here?'
'No: I won't say I am disappointed; she is a very sweet creature. O yes, very! but far too soft and helpless for such a charge as this property, unless she had her father or brother to help her. But I must tell you that she took me to see her baby, a nice little lively thing, poor little dear! and when we were alone, she spoke rather more, begged me to send her godson to see her, thanked me for coming, but crying stopped her from saying more. I could grow very fond of her. No, I don't wonder at him, for there is a great charm in anything so soft and dependent.
Decidedly, Mary Ross had been right when she said, that except Sir Guy, there was no one so difficult to know as Amy.
In the afternoon, Charles insisted on Amabel's going out for fresh air and exercise, and she liked the idea of a solitary wandering; but Philip, to her surprise, offered to come with her, and she was too glad to see him exert himself, to regret the musings she had hoped for; so out they went, after opening the window to give Charles what he called an airing, and he said, that in addition he should 'hirple about a little to explore the ground-floor of the house.'
'We must contrive some way for him to drive out,' said Philip, as he crossed the court with Amabel; 'and you too. There is no walk here, but up hill or down.'
Up-hill they went, along the path leading up the green slope, from which the salt wind blew refreshingly. In a few minutes, Amabel found herself on a spot which thrilled her all over.
There lay before her Guy's own Redclyffe bay; the waves lifting their crests and breaking, the surge resounding, the sea-birds skimming round, the Shag Rock dark and rugged, the scene which seemed above all the centre of his home affections, which he had so longed to show her, that it had cost him an effort on his death-bed to resign the hope; the leaping waves that he said he would not change for the white-headed mountains. And now he was lying among those southern mountains, and she stood in the spot where he had loved to think of seeing her; and with Philip by her side. His sea, his own dear sea, the vision of which had cheered, his last day, like the face of a dear old friend; his sea, rippling and glancing on, unknowing that the eyes that had loved it so well would gaze on it no more; the wind that he had longed for to cool his fevered brow, the rock which had been like a playmate in his boyhood, and where he had perilled his life, and rescued so many. It was one of the seasons when a whole gush of fresh perceptions of his feelings, like a new meeting with himself, would come on her, her best of joys; and there she stood, gazing fixedly, her black veil fluttering in the wind, and her hands pressed close together, till Philip, little knowing what the sight was to her, shivered, saying it was very cold and windy, and without hesitation she turned away, feeling that now Redclyffe was precious indeed.