He spoke all this rapidly, never looking towards his silent companion. When he ceased, Olive feebly stretched out her hand, as if to grasp something for support, then drew it back again, and, hid under her mantle, pressed it tightly against her heart. On that heart Harold's words fell, tearing away all its disguises, laying it bare to the bitter truth. “To me,” she thought—“to me, also, this parting is like death. And why? Because I, too, love him—dearer than ever mother loved son, or sister brother; ay, dearer than my own soul. Oh miserable me!”
“You are silent,” said Harold. “You think I am acting cruelly towards one who loves me so well Human affections are to us secondary things. We scarcely need them; or, when our will demands, we can crush them altogether.”
“I—I have heard so,” said she, slowly.
“Well, Miss Rothesay?” he asked, when they had nearly reached the Parsonage, “what are you thinking of?”
“I think that, wherever you go, you ought to take your mother with you; and little Ailie, too. With them your home will be complete.”
“Yet I have friends to leave—one friend at least—yourself.”
“I, like others, shall miss you; but all true friends should desire, above all things, each other's welfare. I shall be satisfied if I hear at times of yours.”
He made no reply, and they went in at the hall door.
There was much to be done and talked of that afternoon at the Parsonage. First, there was a long lesson to be given to little Ailie; then, at least an hour was spent in following Mrs. Gwynne round the garden, and hearing her dilate on the beauty of her hollyhocks and dahlias.
“I shall have the finest dahlias in the country next year,” said the delighted old lady.