Hugh Crichton's Romance

by Christabel R. Coleridge

Flossy walked on in silence—it was almost more than she could bear. She hardly knew which was the saddest—that no one seemed to depend on Arthur for happiness, or that he seemed to regret their independence so little.

“What shall I do?” was in her heart, and she was speechless, lest it should find its way to her tongue.

“You know, Flossy,” he said, after a pause, “a sorrow like mine swallows up everything. I can’t care very much for lesser partings. Don’t think me heartless. I shall never forget any of you; but things are so changed that, now that I have partly got over the shock, I feel as if an outward change were only the natural consequence of the inner one.”

It was natural enough. Arthur had had many affections, but only one love. There had always been a sort of self-reliance about him; while he had taken gratefully all the sympathy and all the tenderness that was offered him he had never been able to depend on any of it. There was a great risk of hardening; but he had the safeguards of an unselfish disposition, the pure and perfect love that could not die with its object, and a most earnest desire not to fall short of what Mysie’s betrothed had hoped to be. He would try hard to hold himself upright, and it might be trusted that, with the blessing of the prayers of those who loved him, he might realise a yet higher love than Mysie’s, and keep his heart soft and open for the days when even another earthly love might come to fill it. There was no thought of such a time in the heart of the poor girl by his side, who endured, not, indeed, the most passionate, or the most keen, but, perhaps, the most depressing grief a woman can know. But Flossy was young and bright and strong; and, moreover, the passion that only an idealistic nature could have entertained needed very little nourishment, and could find some satisfaction in imagination, admiration, and just the spark of possibility that would not define itself into hope.

In other words, so long as Flossy knew that Arthur’s life was all she could wish it to be, she would lead her own, having no closer ties to remember, without intolerable disturbance or dissatisfaction. It would not spoil all other interests, because the world held for her an interest surpassing them all.

But the last days were very hard to endure; and, though the impulsive outspoken girl guarded every word and look, though Arthur parted from her as from a sister, there came a day when the new depths in her clear, honest eyes, the new tones in her fresh, firm voice, came back on his recollection and suggested a new ending to her story.

To Hugh, in the midst of his own happiness, and such happiness as he had never imagined for himself, it was a great pang to find that Arthur must seek content without his help, and find it away from his side. His judgment acquiesced, and, perhaps, nothing showed how well he had learnt his late hard lessons as the way in which he made everything easy, and secured for his cousin the lot that he had chosen as best for himself.

So Arthur went forth from among them whither these pages cannot follow him, as his young energies recovered their force, and a new life gradually roused his old interest in new hopes and new ambitions.

At home the old canal gave place to the new railroad, and the wedding parties no longer drank tea at the “Pot of Lilies;” but rushed over it and beyond it to more distant and exciting places of entertainment, before the old rector and his wife entered into the promise of their golden wedding, after the fifty years that “were such a little bit of eternity.”

A new generation of girls, among whom Emily Tollemache was for a short time numbered, found Miss Florence still bright and enthusiastic, Miss Clarissa full of her little nephews, while, away in London, Rosa Fairfax congratulated herself that teaching was over for her for ever. Signor Mattei, in sunny Italy, dreamed over and composed the opera that was to be more famous than his daughter’s voice; while the precious china bowl held the place of honour in the Bank House drawing-room, and was discovered by Jem to be quite in the highest style of art, and worth anything to a collector.