: Hazelhurst by Hunt Enid Leigh Foulger Dorothy Illustrator - Siblings Juvenile fiction; Girls Juvenile fiction; Fatherless families Juvenile fiction

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The present generation of the Le Mesuriers were possessed of powerful lungs, the same being a heritage.

It is true that many of the great vaulted rooms and galleries of Hazelhurst, which had rung to the clear tones of the Le Mesurier voice for some three or four hundred years, were now so empty of furniture, so devoid of thick hangings and tapestries--the very floors being stripped bare of the covering natural to well-appointed floors--so denuded, in short, of everything wherein, and behind which, the rich quality of the Le Mesurier voice might lurk and muffle itself, to ring on thinned while suffering no loss of compass, that this might, in some measure, make explanation of the seemingly exceptional strength of their vocal capacity; nay, further, might exonerate them from all charge of exceptionality, but for the fact that as children the Le Mesuriers had shouted with precisely the same lusty vigour and resonance from the lap of luxury. For it was but seven years since that the feet of the five Le Mesurier boys, with the pair belonging to the one Le Mesurier girl, had stridden or trotted, according to their respective length of limb, over deep-piled carpets, from one magnificently furnished apartment to another. They had been seated in the great oak-panelled dining-room, at a table groaning under its weight of massive silver, to feast upon the daintiest fat of the land, tended by noiseless human machines in the Le Mesurier livery. So that if, when sitting deep and well covered in the lap of luxury, the Le Mesurier voice was acknowledgedly sonorous, it is unreasonable to suppose now that it was only seemingly so, under the condition of over-much empty space wherein to resound. Besides, if further proof be needed: five-and-twenty years ago, when the first of the five Le Mesurier boys was born, Doctor Dash, a most eminent authority from London, had remarked upon the voice, and the nurses had declared they had never heard anything like it. It was further agreed to be a very beautiful voice when not raised in grief; even then its beauty remained for the mother; and each new Le Mesurier baby commanded a most interested and attentive audience, the more flattering in their attendance that they came in the full cognisance that no gracious words were to be expected, but solely in the keenness of their desire to learn whether or not the newcomer was possessed of the widely appreciated and justly valued constituent of the Le Mesurier personality.

The sixth and last baby, a girl, in no wise shamed her family nor disappointed those who attended her first summons by any deterioration in lungs. The voice, in its infancy certainly, like the rest of her, was undeniably present, clear, authoritative, cultured, albeit softer-toned than her brothers', as was seemly in a girl.

This last-born Le Mesurier, last-born at least in the direct descent, if not of the generation, while being neither a disappointment nor a disgrace, was an immense surprise. No guard left the side of the white satin-hung cradle whilst she slept, nor the little silver tub wherein she splashed, nor the soft white carpet spread over a portion of the nursery floor whereon she took her exercise, on her back, kicking, ever and anon deeming it advisable to expand the famous lungs in cooings and trills and, on occasion, exerting more lustiness in other sounds, pertaining to babyhood. I repeat, no guard left her until relieved by one equally vigilant. But for the voice, she would, despite this fact, have created serious doubts in the minds of the respective members of her family, and all connected with it, as to whether some changeling was not usurping the cradle, the tub, and the exercise ground of the rightful Le Mesurier girl.

For the child had brown hair and eyes; and the skin, though exquisitely clear and delicate, was, of necessity, darker than that which went to constitute a well-ordered, self-respecting Le Mesurier.

In the first days of her life, therefore, in spite of the love that encompassed her, the child was held to be something of an alien. The pride in the lovely little creature that overflowed the mother's heart came rather timidly, rather deprecatingly, from her lips. None of her boys had presumed to be anything but fair, the most daring among them attaining to only light brown hair, and all looked upon the world with the traditional blue eyes. The case, however, was not unprecedented; and when this fact was ascertained, the family was free to recover its natural calm and to pursue the even tenor of its way, holding its head even higher than heretofore.

One day, as Helen Le Mesurier was exhibiting the little beauty to a host of admiring friends, with a wistful and slightly apologetic manner, in which attitude she vainly sought to veil her pride, Hubert, her husband, was struck with a sudden thought. Hastily quitting the room, unnoticed, he sped in some excitement to the picture-gallery, situate in the west wing of the great house. Too impatient to brook the delay of unbarring the heavy shutters, he seized and lighted a lamp, which he held at arm's length above his head, as he eagerly and swiftly scanned row upon row of dead and gone Le Mesuriers portrayed upon the walls. Everywhere fair hair, from light brown to gold, gleamed in the lamplight, straight-featured, broad-browed, the women dazzlingly fair of skin, the men square-chinned, and, for the most part, curly-headed--one and all blue-eyed.

But Hubert passed these by, for some vague memory had awakened within him. Surely his father had once shown him, as a child, the portrait of a dark-eyed girl, half in pride, half in apology. If his memory were not tricking him, such a portrait must be in existence. He made his way directly to the more secluded parts of the room. His diligence was soon rewarded, for there, within a corner niche, almost at his feet, he discovered the object of his search: a small portrait of a lovely little girl, scarcely above miniature size, surrounded by an oak frame. Her hair, of a nut-brown, waved and rippled to her waist, and a pair of wide brown eyes looked out, mischievously, upon the beholder; the wonderfully clear and delicate skin was warm of tone.

Setting down the lamp, Hubert, his fingers trembling with eagerness, unfastened the picture, and, turning it, read upon the back: "Hazel Le Mesurier, aged five years, 1671."

Thus it was that the Le Mesurier girl came to be named Hazel.

At five years of age a painting was made of her head and shoulders, in like pose, on the same sized canvas as that of her namesake, and, behold, the two faces, allowing for the dissimilarities of style arising from the difference of the schools of painting of so remote a period from those of the present time, were as like, one to the other, as two--hazelnuts!

When his daughter had attained to her ninth year, Hubert Le Mesurier fell ill and died, being then in the forty-fifth year of his age.

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