"I'd take the greatest care of it, if you like to trust it to me," with what Kit would certainly have termed "an obliging air."
"I don't doubt you," sardonically. "But certainly not. It was given to me, and I feel myself bound to look after it."
"Pity we can't have it petrified," says Mr. Kelly, thoughtfully. "Then you might hang it round your neck as a trophy." At this they both laugh, and finally the trophy, after much difficulty is satisfactorily stored away.
It is a fortnight later, and desolation has overtaken Monica. Brian has passed out of her active life, has ceased from that seeing and hearing and that satisfaction of touch that belong to a daily intercourse with one beloved. Only in thought can she find him now. He has gone upon that threatened journey to those detested estates of his in Westmeath.
Yesterday he went; and to-day as she wakes it seems to her that a cold and cruel mist has wrapped her world in its embrace. We never know how we prize a thing until we lose it (N. B.—Mark the novelty of this idea;) and now, for the first time, Monica finds herself fully awake to the fact of how necessary Desmond is to her everyday happiness.
She had gone down to the river-side to bid him farewell, and had been calm, almost careless, throughout the interview,—so calm that the young man's heart dies within him, and a latent sense of hope deferred had made it sick.
But just at the very last she had given way, and had [flung] herself into his embrace, and twined her arms around his neck,—dear, clinging arms—and had broken into bitter weeping. And—
"Don't be long, Brian! don't be long!" she had sobbed, with deep entreaty, and with such a tender passion as had shaken all her slender frame.
So they had "kissed and kissed," and parted. And Desmond, though sad as man may be at the thought that he should look upon her face no more for four long weeks, still left her with a gladder heart than he had ever known. Her tears were sweet to him, and in her grief he found solace for his own.