‘What! not even my brother?’ said Ben; and somehow it was a kind of comfort to his mind that Laurie had not been there.
‘Mr. Frank do come by times,’ said the boatman; ‘but things is changed since last summer, when you gentlemen was allays about--you and your friends.’
‘Yes, Tom, things are changed,’ said Ben, as he pushed off from the bank. But somehow he did not feel so cast down about that change as he had been. Even the sight of the silvery, quiet river, which had not altered, and the trees drooping over it, every branch of which he seemed to know; and the bank that swelled into soft cliffs and wooded heights, as a sudden turn brought him within sight of Renton, did not bring up, as he had feared it would, any bitter sense of injury and misfortune to his mind. Instead of being the heir and proprietor of all this, he was but Ben Renton, assistant to a railway man, going engineering without knowing how, away to the other end of the world. He said so to himself, and still, somehow, he did not feel bitter, which was curious. On the contrary, a soft sense of well-being stole over him. The river was as beautiful as ever, though he had no territorial rights over it--the woods rustled as softly in the sweet air of the spring; the sky was so bright above him, and hope, and energy, and resolution so strong in his breast! And Millicent! He had not known there was such a creature when he had last been there--reason enough to take away all the bitterness from his sensations now. Yet it was strange to see the house exactly as it used to be--the outer blinds dropped over Mrs. Renton’s windows, her flowers arranged in their old order, her very sofa placed beneath the trees, as if she had been there a moment before. The only change Ben could see was in his mother’s crape-covered dress and the dead white of the cap which surrounded her pretty, faded face. That was an improvement, though she did not think so; but it was the only visible sign of all the great events that had occurred at the Manor within this eventful year.