| The early sunshine-as fresh as that which peeped into Eve's bower, while she and Adam sat at breakfast there-came twinkling through the branches of the pear tree, and fell quite across the table. All was now ready. There were chairs and plates for three. A chair and plate for Hepzibah-the same for Phoebe-but what other guest did her cousin look for? | Утреннее солнце, столь же свежее и улыбающееся, как и то, лучи которого проникали в цветущее жилище первых людей, пробиваясь сквозь ветви груши, освещало стол, на котором было приготовлено три прибора: один для Гепзибы, другой для Фиби... но для кого же третий? |
| Throughout this preparation, there had been a constant tremor in Hepzibah's frame; an agitation so powerful that Phoebe could see the quivering of her gaunt shadow, as thrown by the firelight on the kitchen wall, or by the sunshine on the parlour floor. Its manifestations were so various, and agreed so little with one another, that the girl knew not what to make of it. Sometimes it seemed an ecstasy of delight and happiness. At such moments Hepzibah would fling out her arms, and enfold Phoebe in them, and kiss her cheek as tenderly as ever her mother had; she appeared to do so by an inevitable impulse, and as if her bosom were oppressed with tenderness, of which she must needs pour out a little, in order to gain breathing room. The next moment, without any visible cause for the change, her unwonted joy shrank back, appalled as it were, and clothed itself in mourning; or it ran and hid itself, so to speak, in the dungeon of her heart, where it had long lain chained while a cold, spectral sorrow took the place of the imprisoned joy, that was afraid to be enfranchised-a sorrow as black as that was bright. She often broke into a little, nervous, hysteric laugh, more touching than any tears could be; and forthwith, as if to try which was the most touching, a gust of tears would follow; or perhaps the laughter and tears came both at once, and surrounded our poor Hepzibah, in a moral sense, with a kind of pale, dim rainbow. Towards Phoebe, as we have said, she was affectionate-far tenderer than ever before, in their brief acquaintance, except for that one kiss on the preceding night-yet with a continually recurring pettishness and irritability. | Г епзиба, бросив последний хозяйственный взгляд на стол, взяла Фиби за руку. |