The advice was followed, and Christal disappeared; not, however, without lavishing on Mrs. and Miss Rothesay a thousand gracious thanks and apologies, with an air and deportment that did infinite honour to the polite instruction of her pension.
Mrs. Rothesay, confused with all that had happened, did not ask many questions, but only said as she retired,
“I don't quite like her, Olive—I don't like the tone of her voice; and yet there was something that struck me in the touch of her hand—which is so different in different people.”
“Hers is a very pretty hand, mamma. It is quite classic in shape—like poor papa's—which I remember so well!”
“There never was such a beautiful hand as your papa's. He said it descended in the Rothesay family. You have it, you know, my child,” observed Mrs. Rothesay. She sighed, but softly; for, after all these years, the widow and the fatherless had learned to speak of their loss without pain, though with tender remembrance.
Thinking of him and of her mother, Olive thought, likewise, how much happier was her own lot than that of the orphan-girl, who, by her own confession, had never known what it was to remember the love of the dead, or to rejoice in the love of the living. And her heart was moved with the pity—nay, even tenderness, for Christal Manners.
When she had assisted her mother to bed—as she always did—Olive, in passing down stairs, moved by some feeling of interest, listened at the door of the young stranger. She was apparently walking up and down her room with a quick, hurried step. Olive knocked.
“Are you quite comfortable?—do you want anything?”
“Who's there? Oh! come in, Miss Rothesay.”
Olive entered, and found, to her surprise, that the candle was extinguished.