Eager tell-tales of her mind;
Paint with their impetuous stress
Of inquiring tenderness;
Those frank eyes, where deep doth lie
An angelic gravity.”
Matthew Arnold.
The last day of Evereld’s school life was drawing to a close, “packing day” as they called it, and when it had been a mere question of the beginning of the holidays it had always been a rather festive occasion. But on this last evening, standing at the threshold of a new untried life, there was a good deal of sadness about it, and her usually bright face was a little clouded as she paced up and down a shady garden walk with her special friend Bride O’Ryan. The merry voices of the younger children, as they played hide and seek, and now and then a distant sound of applause from those who were watching the tennis players, made her feel melancholy, for to-morrow she would no longer have her nook in this happy, busy hive of industry, would no longer have a share in the genial life, but would be in a very different home, a home which was not her own, which had never seemed in the least homelike, and to which she did not at all want to return. A happy remembrance caused her cheerfulness to return.
“Oh, Bride!” she exclaimed, “perhaps, after all, Sir Matthew will let me spend the next fortnight with you as we begged. He won’t let me go to Ireland, he was quite set against that, but he may say yes to your sister’s second letter.”
“To be sure,” said Bride, with her most good-humoured smile. “Why should he be saying no to such a sensible plan? He can’t wish to have you in town for the first part of August. Doreen has plenty of room for you in this house she has taken on the Parade, and we will bathe every day, and have no end of fun.”
“Here comes Aimee with a letter. Bride, I believe it will be from Sir Matthew; things come just when one is talking about them.”