The old
attendant who viewed every member of the family whom he served and
loved just as the first man regarded the world at his first glimpse of
it--that is, as an extension of his own consciousness--was deeply
moved at the sight of his young master's sombre face. Edward's heart,
indeed, ached painfully. The perpetual repetition of this luxuriance
of young fresh life in the woods of May was a constant reminder of a
life that until lately had been as vigorously beautiful, and now
perhaps had passed away from this world forever.
Leaving their weary horses at Holland Landing, they took boat down the
river and bay, desiring to hasten their arrival at the family mansion,
nearly opposite to what is now the prettily situated town of Barrie.
Edward sat apart and gazed long and silently at the waving tree lines,
dark against a luminous, cool, gray sky, with its scattered but serene
group of clouds. All his desire for home and for her who was the
sunshine of it had resolved itself into a yearning that gnawed
momentarily at his heart. Instead of the fair sky and landscape and
silent waterways of his New World home, he saw or rather felt, the
hush of a dim chamber, whose wasted occupant had travelled far into
the valley of the shadow of death.
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