“Not for me--alas! not for me,” she murmured; and her head drooped, and it seemed as though a cold hand were laid on her breast, saying, “Grow still, and throb no more!”
Then, lifting her eyes, she saw shining far up in the sky, beyond the mist and the frost and the gloom, one little star--the only one. With a long sigh, her soul seemed to pass upward in prayer.
“Oh, God! since Thou hast willed it so--if in this world I must walk alone, do Thou walk with me! If I must know no human love, fill my soul with Thine! If earthly joy be far from me, give me that peace of Heaven which passeth all understanding!”
And so--mournful, yet serene--Olive Rothesay reached her home.
She found her friend there. Sara looked confused at seeing her, and appeared to try, with the unwonted warmth of her greeting, to efface from Olive's mind the remembrance of what had happened the previous evening. But Olive, for the first time, shrank from these tokens of affection.
“Even Sara's love may be only compassion,” she bitterly thought; but her father's nature was in the girl--his self-command--his proud reserve. Sara Derwent only thought her rather silent and cold.
There was a constraint on both--so much so that Olive heard, without testifying much pain, news which a few days before would have grieved her to the heart. This visit was a good-bye. Sara had been suddenly sent for by her grandfather, who lived in a distant county; and the summons entailed a parting of some weeks--perhaps longer.
“But I shall not forget you, Olive. I shall write to you constantly. It will be my sole amusement in the dull place I am going to. Why, nobody ever used to enter my grandfather's house except the parson, who lived some few miles off. Poor old soul! I used to set fire to his wig, and hide his spectacles. But he is dead now, I hear, and there has come in his place a young clergyman. Shall I strike up a little flirtation with _him_, eh, Olive?”
But Olive was in no jesting mood. She only shook her head.
Mrs. Rothesay looked with admiration on Sara. “What a blithe young creature you are, my dear. You win everybody's liking. I wish Olive were only half as merry as you.”
“Well, we must try to make her so when I come back,” said Sara, affectionately. “I shall have tales enough to tell, perhaps about that young curate. Nay, don't frown, Olive. My cousin says he is a Scotsman born, and you like Scotland. Only his father was Welsh, and he has a horrid Welsh name: Gwyrdyr, or Gwynne, or something like it. But I'll give you all information.”