No one would have believed that the young creature, on whom Mrs. Rothesay gazed with a tenderness, not unmingled with admiration, had been the poor infant from which she once turned with a sensation of pain, almost amounting to disgust. But, learning to love, one learns also to admire. Besides, Olive's defect was less apparent as she grew up, and the extreme sweetness of her countenance almost atoned for her bad figure. Yet, as the mother fastened her white dress, and arranged the golden curls so as to fall in a shower on her neck and bosom, she sighed heavily.
Olive did not notice it; she was too much occupied in tying up a rare bouquet—a birthday gift for Sara.
“Well, are you quite satisfied with my dress, dearest mamma?”
“Not quite;” and Mrs. Rothesay fetched a small mantle of white fur, which she laid round Olive's shoulders. “Wear this, dear; you will look better then—see.” She led her to the mirror, and Olive saw the reflection of her own figure, so effectually disguised, that the head, with its delicate and spiritual beauty, seemed lifting itself out of a white cloud.
“'Tis a pretty little mantle, but why must I wear it, mamma?—the night is not cold.” So little did she think of herself, and so slight had been her intercourse with the world, that the defect in her shape rarely crossed her mind. But the mother, so beautiful herself, and to whom beauty was still of such importance, was struck with bitter pain. She would not even console herself by the reflection, with which many a one had lately comforted her, that Olive's slight deformity was becoming less perceptible, and that she might, in a great measure, outgrow it in time. Still it was there. As Mrs. Rothesay looked at the swan-like curves of her own figure, and then at her daughter's, she would almost have resigned her own once-cherished, but now disregarded, beauty, could she have bestowed that gift upon her beloved child.
Without speaking, lest Olive should guess her thoughts, she laid the mantle aside, only she whispered in bidding adieu, “Dear, if you see other girls prettier, or more admired, more noticed than yourself, never mind! Olive is mamma's own pet—always.”
Oh, blessed adversity! oh, sweetness, taught by suffering! How marvellous was the change wrought in Sybilla's heart.
Olive had never in her life before been at a “private ball,” with chalked floors, rout seats, and a regular band. She was quite dazzled by the transformation thus effected in the Derwents' large, rarely-used, dining-room, where she had had many a merry game with little Robert and Lyle. It was perfect fairyland. The young damsels of Oldchurch—haughty boarding-school belles, whom she had always rather feared, when Sara's hospitality brought her in contact with them—were now grown into perfect court beauties. She was quite alarmed by their dignity, and they scarcely noticed poor little Olive at all. Sara, sweeping across the room, appeared to the eyes of her little friend a perfect queen of beauty. But the vision came and vanished. Never was there a belle so much in request as the lively Sara.
Only once, Olive looked at her, and remembered the sailor-boy, who was, perhaps, tossing in some awful night-storm, or lying on the lonely deck, in the midst of the wide Atlantic. And she thought, that when her time came to love and be loved, she would not take everything quite so easily as Sara.
“How pleasant quadrilles must be!” said Olive, as she sat with her favourite Lyle, watching the dancers. Lyle had crept to her, sliding his hand in hers, and looking up to her with a most adoring gaze, as indeed he often did. He had even communicated his intention of marrying her when he grew a man—a determination which greatly excited the ridicule of his elder brother.