“Permit me,” said Harold Gwynne, as, stepping quickly forward, he drew her arm through his, arranging her shawl with a care like a woman's. And so he led her into the house, with a tenderness beautiful to see.
Olive, as she followed silently after, felt her whole heart melted towards him. She never forgot Harold's first meeting with, and his kindness to, her mother.
He went away, promising to pay another visit soon.
“I am quite charmed with Mr. Gwynne,” said Mrs. Rothesay. “Tell me, Olive, what he is like.”
Olive described him, though not enthusiastically at all. Nevertheless, her mother answered, smiling, “He must, indeed, be a remarkable person. He is such a perfect gentleman, and his voice is so kind and pleasant;—like his mother, too, he has a little of the sweet Scottish tongue. Truly, I did not think there had been in the world such a man as Harold Gwynne.”
“Nor I,” answered Olive, in a soft, quiet, happy voice. She hung over her mother with a deeper tenderness—she looked out into the lovely autumn sunset with a keener sense of beauty and of joy. The sun was setting, the year was waning; but on Olive Rothesay's life had risen a new season and a new day.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
“Well, I never in my life knew such a change as Farnwood has made in Miss Manners,” observed old Hannah, the Woodford Cottage maid; who, though carefully kept in ignorance of any facts that could betray the secret of Christal's history, yet seemed at times to bear a secret grudge against her, as an interloper. “There she comes, riding across the country like some wild thing—she who used to be so prim and precise!”
“Poor young creature, she is like a bird just let out of a cage,” said Mrs. Rothesay, kindly. “It is often so with girls brought up as she has been. Olive, I am glad you never went to school.”