“A forest country, hilly and bleak. We drove through miles of forest-land, over roads carpeted with fallen leaves. The woods will look glorious this autumn time.”
“That will be very pleasant, my child,” said Mrs. Rothesay, who was so accustomed to see with Olive's eyes, and to delight in the vivid pictures painted by Olive's eloquent tongue, that she never spoke like a person who is blind. Even the outward world was to her no blank of desolation. Wherever they went, every beautiful place, or thing, or person, that Olive saw, she treasured in memory. “I must tell mamma of this,” or “I must bring mamma here, and paint the view for her.” And so she did, in words so rich and clear, that the blind mother often said she enjoyed such scenes infinitely more than when the whole wide earth lay open to her unregardful eyes.
“I wonder,” said Olive, “what part of S——shire we are in. We really might have been fairy-guided hither; we seem only aware that our journey began in London and ended at Farnwood. I don't know anything about the neighbourhood.”
“Never mind the neighbourhood, dear, since we are settled, you say, in such a pretty house. Tell me, is it like Woodford Cottage?”
“Not at all! It is quite modern and comfortable. And they have made it all ready for us, just as if we were come to a friend's house on a visit. How kind of Mrs. Fludyer!”
“Nay! I'm sure Mrs. Fludyer never knew how to arrange a house in her life. She had no hand in the matter, trust me!” observed the sharply-observant Christal.
“Well, then, it is certainly the same guiding-fairy who has done this for us, too. And I am very thankful to have such a quiet, pleasant coming-home.”
“I, too, feel it like coming home,” said Mrs. Rothesay, in a soft weary voice. “Olive, love, I am glad the journey is over; it has been almost too much for me. We will not go back to London yet awhile; we will stay here a long time.”
“As long as ever you like, darling. And now shall I show you the house?”
“Showing” the house implied a long description of it, in Olive's blithest language, as they passed from room to room. It was a pretty, commodious dwelling, perhaps the prettiest portion of which was the chamber which Miss Rothesay appropriated as her mother's and her own.