The Wildfire Club - The Emma Hardinge Britten Archive

68 THE HAUNTED GRANGE.
ing peal of hollow joy never end? Evening comes. and
the quiet village sleeps, while the silence of the brokenhearted
rests on the loud-tongued church steeple. The
bridal party close round the social board; the old man
smiles wanly upon the group; the sullen bridegroom plays
abstractedly with the orange blossoms gleaming through
the dark tresses of the bride. on whose cold. proud, marble
features neither sentiment nor passion leaves its trace to
show that a breathing soul sympathized with its beautiful
but lifeless casket.
And around and amidst them all flits the glancing form
of Hannah; no longer the gleeful chiftl of joy and impulse,
but a quiet. subdued peing, from whom the freshness of
youth and the day-spring of hope had departed forever.
In action she is the Hannah of other days, anticipating
and providing for the wants of all around her; but the
Boul within is changed, and its impress weighs down her
once buoyant step, stamps its rigid lines about the closeset
lips, and ever and anon gleams forth in flashes of wild
agony in the strangely bright but restless eyes.
As the night creeps heavily on. the old man. without
'attempting to meet her wandering glance, asks her to sing
one of the songs he much loved to hear. The air is
named; 'tis a merry strain, full of hope and promise, and
might shed some kindred warmth over the weary circle.
Hannah. ever willing to oblige, prepares to accompany herself
on Alice's lute, and a sweet, gay symphony strikes the
first ray of gladness to the heart of that bridal party which
they have known since the sacrifice was consummated.
But, .ven as she attempts to give utterance to the sparkling
metre of the song. the fixed and gleaming eyes upturned
to heaven bespeak a soul rapt and preoccupied;
her fingers stray unconsciously among the strings; strange.