Blanche: A Story for Girls — Inside the Classic

This was how it came about. The eldest son--or rather grandson of her hosts, for he was an orphan--Henry Derwent, fell in love with the pretty and attractive girl, and she returned his affection. There was no objection to the marriage, for the Derwents and Fennings were friends of more than a generation's standing. And Henry's prospects were good, as he was already second in command to old Mr Derwent himself, the head of the large and well-established firm of Derwent and Paulmier, wine merchants and vine-growers; and Anastasia, the only daughter of a widowed country parson of fair private means, would have a "dot" which the Derwents, even taking into account their semi-French ideas on such subjects, thought satisfactory.

Mr Fenning gave his consent, more readily than his friends and his daughter had expected, for he was a devoted, almost an adoring father, and the separation from him was the one drawback in Anastasia's eyes.

"I thought papa would have been broken-hearted at the thought of parting with me," she said half poutingly, for she was a trifle spoilt, when the anxiously looked for letter had been received and read. "He takes it very philosophically."

"Very unselfishly, let us say," her _fiance_ replied, though in his secret heart the same thought had struck him.

But the enigma was only too speedily explained. Within a day or two of the arrival of her father's almost perplexingly glad consent came a telegram to Mr Derwent, as speedily as possible followed by a letter written at his request by the friend and neighbour who had been with Mr Fenning at the last. For Anastasia's father was dead--had died after but an hour or two's acute illness, though he had known for long that in some such guise the end must come.

He was glad for his "little girl" to be spared the shock in its near appallingness, wrote Sir Adam Nigel; he was thankful to know that her future was secured and safe. For he had no very near relations, and Sir Adam himself, though Anastasia's godfather, was an old bachelor, living alone. The question of a home in England would have been a difficult one. And in his last moments Mr Fenning had decided that if the Derwents could without inconvenience keep the young girl with them till her marriage, which he earnestly begged might not be long deferred, such an arrangement would be the wisest and best.

His wishes were carried out. The tears were scarcely dried on the newly orphaned girl's face, ere she realised that for her husband's sake she must try again to meet life cheerfully. And in her case it was not difficult to do so, for her marriage proved a very happy one. Henry Derwent was an excellent and a charming man, an unselfish and considerate husband, a devoted though wise father. For twelve years Anastasia's life was almost cloudless. Then, when her youngest child, a boy, was barely a year old, the blow fell. Again, for the second time in her life, a few hours' sharp illness deprived her of her natural protector, and she was left alone. Much more alone than at the epoch of her father's sudden death, for she had then Henry to turn to. Now, though old Mr Derwent was still living, the only close sympathy and affection she could count upon was that of her little girls, Blanche and Anastasia, eleven and nine years of age respectively, when this first and grievous sorrow overtook them.

For some months Mrs Derwent was almost totally crushed by her loss. Then by degrees her spirits revived. Her nature was not a very remarkable one, but it was eminently healthy and therefore elastic. And in her sorrow, severe as it was, there was nothing to sour or embitter, nothing to destroy her faith in her fellow-creatures or render her suspicious and distrustful. And her life, both as her father's daughter and her husband's wife, had been a peculiarly bright and sheltered one.

"Too bright to last," she thought sometimes, and perhaps it was true.