CHAPTER 42
It behoves us to leave Kit for a while, thoughtful and expectant,
and to follow the fortunes of little Nell; resuming the thread of
the narrative at the point where it was left, some chapters back.
In one of those wanderings in the evening time, when, following the
two sisters at a humble distance, she felt, in her sympathy with
them and her recognition in their trials of something akin to her
own loneliness of spirit, a comfort and consolation which made such
moments a time of deep delight, though the softened pleasure they
yielded was of that kind which lives and dies in tears--in one of
those wanderings at the quiet hour of twilight, when sky, and
earth, and air, and rippling water, and sound of distant bells,
claimed kindred with the emotions of the solitary child, and
inspired her with soothing thoughts, but not of a child's world or
its easy joys--in one of those rambles which had now become her
only pleasure or relief from care, light had faded into darkness
and evening deepened into night, and still the young creature
lingered in the gloom; feeling a companionship in Nature so serene
and still, when noise of tongues and glare of garish lights would
have been solitude indeed.
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