The real daughter of the house received me with wide-open arms, as she lay upon a couch in her boudoir. Poor girl! even now I saw a sad change in her; her merry, dancing eyes looked anxious, and almost tragic; were they already deploring her blighted youth? Her lips were drawn with pain, her cheeks had lost their pretty contour. Yes, in ten days’ time Dolly Chalgrove was wasted to a shadow!
Her spirits, however, were still in robust condition, and she hailed me with enthusiasm, and—what is more lasting—with warm and enduring affection.
“To tell you the truth, I don’t care for many girls!” she confessed as I sat beside her, “and those who have been my chief pals have a horrid knack of getting married, and that puts an end to everything; because, once a girl marries, she tells all she hears to her husband, and even lets him read her letters, and that three-cornered sort of business is most unsatisfactory. But now I have you, my own first cousin, who is the image of my Aunt Gwendoline, father says, and as I resemble her too, no wonder we are almost like sisters, and that I was drawn to you on the spot!”
“You remember that I told you to look out for me in the sporting papers; but I never dreamt that when you did see me mentioned in a paragraph, it would be as the victim of a ‘shocking accident in the hunting field.’ It was not really the horse’s fault, though he has a hot temper. Another woman was riding jealous—she actually rode _at_ me! She crossed us at a fence. He jumped wildly, and fell—fell on me, on stones. I put up my hands (as I always do) to save my face; but in his struggles he kicked me in the back. You say I shall get better. No, my dear Cousin Gwen, I’m going to let you into a horrible secret—I shall get _worse_. I feel it. Every day I am more loglike and powerless. Oh, I am so sorry for the poor, poor pater. He and I always hunted in couples, always went everywhere together. Gwen, you will have to be a daughter to him and take my place.”
Dolly’s sad presentiment came true; all that winter, spring, and summer, she never left her bed, and I nursed her. At length there was a shade of improvement, and we took her abroad by easy stages, and remained there for months. She is no longer bedridden, or a helpless invalid, or chained to her sofa always.