“It will not seem strange to you some day,” George Rutherford said, stroking the dark head. “Wait till you know him, darling. He is so fair—the ‘chiefest among ten thousand!’ That has all to come to you by-and-by. Only he must be sought before he will show himself; and it isn’t a happy thing for us to be content apart from him. Remember, the more love I give to him, the more love I have for you.”
“Oh, father, it all seems so far-away; and I don’t care for anything or anybody except you!” murmured Joan.
[CHAPTER IX.]
“GEORGE’S VALLEY.”
“GEORGIE, I can’t believe it is seventeen years since we were here last. Why, it seems exactly like yesterday,” said Dulcibel.
She did not so often now call him “Georgie” as “George,” which name indeed better befitted his fine presence. But associations of early married life were strong in this place, and Dulcibel reverted to the term naturally; for they were back once more in the old Welsh hotel, close upon the wide Welsh moor, with its grounds and its avenue, and its fair surrounding hilly landscapes. The hotel had made some advances in refinement with advancing years: otherwise things were little changed.
Only people were changed. George and Dulcibel were bridegroom and bride no longer, but middle-aged man and wife; and the infant Joan had become a finished young lady; and Nessie took the place of the absent Leo.
Serious thoughts.
Moreover, of all the faces around the horseshoe table at dinner the evening before, not one could be recognized as identical with a boarder in the hotel at a certain date seventeen years earlier. The tide of life had swept them elsewhere, bringing back only the Rutherfords and Joan.