"You will be gone ages, and ages, and ages, and I want it now," said Betty, who was like her mother in more than one thing. She pleaded to be allowed to go into the town, too, but the wind was much too cold.
Mrs. Brenton fell in quickly with the arrangement, only suggesting that Caroline should drive; but the walk did not frighten the girl.
Indeed, a sense of gladness radiated her as she progressed briskly along the muddy road, and yet perhaps it was inevitable that as she found herself alone, away from the warmth and the cosy atmosphere of the busy household, she should drift into comparisons; that she should awaken to the significance of how really apart she was from these happy elements of home, and family, and festival.
Oddly enough, it was not for herself as she was this day that she felt pity, it was for herself as that little, lonely creature left to pick what sunshine she could out of the bleakest surroundings that her heart ached.
The very pleasantness of her present circumstances emphasized all she had missed.
Christmas hitherto had been to her synonymous only with the packing of boxes and the departure of all of her schoolmates. The last winter she had spent in that old schoolhouse had, it is true, been less lonely than most, for two other little children had been left to share her solitude, and she had made gallant efforts at gaiety. She smiled faintly now as she recalled all she had done, but she sighed too.
"Yet we were really and truly happy," she said to herself. "At any rate, it was a hundred times better than last Christmas. Shall I ever forget that dull, long, miserable, foggy day! It seemed as if it would never end. My food sent up as usual to my room, and not a soul to say a kind word! Well, it is a little bit different now!"
The wind swept across the open places. It was so strong and cold that it made her gasp for breath every now and then, but it stung the colour into her cheeks, and made her dark eyes light up into extraordinary beauty.
"If only this could go on for ever," she said to herself; "but somehow I feel so afraid it can't last. She is so sweet, so affectionate"—the "she" was Camilla—"when we are together, but even now I believe she has forgotten my existence."
Indeed, though a daily report of the children's doings was sent to London, Mrs. Lancing had not even scribbled a word to the girl in reply. She wrote to Mrs. Brenton, she telegraphed, she telephoned, and she sent all manner of things to her children, but she showed no signs of remembrance to Caroline.