“What quantities of primroses you have got!” she said.
“You see, Hugh picked so many!” said Arthur. He could not resist the little joke, any more than he could help the bright courtesy that made him enter into the spirit of the thing, and pour out the milk and hand the cake.
“Drink, signorina!” he said, gaily, as he gave a cup to Violante.
And yet, when the thought came over him of what such a merry-making would have been to him last year, perhaps Hugh, angry and full of miserable misunderstanding as he was, need hardly have envied his cousin’s smile. For Violante stood, living and beautiful, before him; and though he shut his eyes to the sun-rays of possibility, he felt their warmth.
It was all over in ten minutes. Miss Venning summoned her flock; Hugh asked if Colonel Dysart was at home, and, with Arthur, followed the milk-jugs back to Ashenfold. Flossy, feeling miserable, cross, ready to cry, and utterly unheroic, thought she should hate the sight of primroses for ever; and Violante—flushed, excited, knowing that, whatever Hugh’s tone indicated, it was not indifference—thought the fair, tender blossoms had just a little of the sweetness that had clung to the white bouquet, one precious trophy of her stage-life.
Part 6, Chapter XLII.
At the Year’s End.
“This, only this; through sorrow cometh learning.
Through suffering, greater growth.
In patience, therefore, wait the golden morning
That draweth near us both.”