Seven summers more the grand old mulberry-tree at Woodford Cottage has borne leaf, flower, and fruit; the old dog that used to lie snarling under its branches, lies there still, but snarls no more. Between him and the upper air are two feet of earth, together with an elegant canine tombstone, on which Miss Rothesay, by the entreaty of the disconsolate Meliora, has modelled in clay a very good likeness of the departed.
Snap is the only individual who has passed away at Woodford Cottage; in all things else there has been an increase, not a decrease. The peaches and nectarines cover two walls instead of one, and the clematis has mounted in white virgin beauty even to the roof. Altogether, the garden is changed for the better. Trim it is not, and never would be—thanks to Olive, who, a true lover of the picturesque, hated trim gardens,—but its luxuriance is that of flowers, not weeds; and luxuriant it is, so that every day you might pull for a friend that pleasantest of all pleasant gifts, a nosegay; yea, and afterwards find, that, like charity, the more you gave the richer was your store.
Enter from the garden into the drawing-room, and you will perceive a change, too. Its dreariness has been softened by many a graceful adjunct of comfort and luxury. Half of it, by means of a crimson screen, is transformed into a painting-room. Olive would have it so; for several reasons, the chief of which was, that whether the young paintress was working or not, Mrs. Rothesay might never be out of the sound of her daughter's voice. For, alas! this same sweet love-toned voice was all the mother now knew of Olive!
Gradually there had come over Mrs. Rothesay the misfortune which she feared. She was now blind. Relating this, it may seem though we were about to picture a scene of grief and desolation: but not so. A misfortune that steals on year by year, slowly, inevitably, often comes with so light a footstep that we scarcely hear it. In this manner had come Mrs. Rothesay's blindness. Her sight faded so gradually, that its deprivation caused no despondency; and the more helpless she grew, the closer she was clasped by those supporting arms of filial love, which softened all pain, supplied all need, and were to her instead of strength, youth, eyesight!
One only bitterness did she know—that she could not see Olive's pictures. Not that she understood Art at all; but everything that Olive did must be beautiful. She missed nought else, not even her daughter's face, for she saw it continually in her heart Perhaps in the grey shadow of a form, which she said her eyes could still trace in the dim haze, she pictured the likeness of an Olive ten times fairer than the real one: an Olive whose cheek never grew pale with toil, whose brow was never crossed by that cloud of heart-weariness which all who labour in an intellectual pursuit must know at times. If so, the mother was saved from many of the pangs which visit those who see their beloved ones staggering under a burden which they themselves have no power either to bear or to take away.
And so, in spite of this affliction, the mother and daughter were happy, even quite cheerful sometimes. For cheerfulness, originally foreign to Olive's nature, had sprung up there—one of those heart-flowers which Love, passing by, sows according as they are needed, until they bloom as though indigenous to the soil. To hear Miss Rothesay laugh, as she was laughing just now, you would have thought she was the merriest creature in the world, and had been so all her life. Moreover, from this blithe laugh, as well as from her happy face, you might have taken her for a young maiden of nineteen, instead of a woman of six-and-twenty, which she really was. But with some, after youth's first sufferings are passed, life's dial seems to run backward.
“My child, how very merry you are, you and Miss Vanbrugh!” said Mrs. Rothesay, from her corner.
“Well, mamma, and how can we help it,—talking of my 'Charity,' and the lady who bought it. Would you believe, darling, she told Miss Vanbrugh that she did so because the background was like a view in their park, and the two little children resembled the two young Masters Fludyer—fortunate likeness for me!”
“Ay,” said Miss Meliora, “only my brother would say you were very wrong to sell your picture to such stupid people, who know nothing about Art.”
“Perhaps I was; but,” she added whisperingly, “you know I have not sold my Academy picture yet, and mamma must go into the country this autumn.”