A PILGRIMAGE
On the afternoon of Christmas-eve, Diana sat in the library writing to David. She had drawn up a small table close to the fire. The room was cosy, and perfectly quiet, excepting for the leap and crackle of flames among the huge pine logs.
Diana dated her letter; then laid aside her pen, and, resting her chin in her hand, read over once again David's Christmas letter, which had reached her that morning.
It was very full of the consecration of the Church of the Holy Star, which was to take place before the Feast of Epiphany.
It held no allusions to the anniversaries, so soon coming round; the days which, a year ago, had been fraught with happenings of such deep importance to them both.
Long after she had reached Yours ever, David Rivers, Diana sat with bent head, pondering over the closely written sheets, so pregnant with omissions, trying to make up her mind as to whether she should take her cue from David, and ignore the significance of these days; or whether she should act upon her first instinctive impulse, and write freely of them.
The firelight flickered on her coils of golden hair, and revealed the fact that her face had lost the rounded contour of that perfect buoyancy of health, which had been hers a year ago. Its thinness, and the purple shadows beneath the eyes, made her look older; but, as she lifted her eyes from the closely written sheets of foreign paper, and gazed, with a wistful little smile, into the fire, there was in them such a depth of chastened tenderness, and in her whole expression so gentle a look of quiet patience—as of a heart keeping long vigil, and not yet within sight of dawn—that the mellowing and softening of the spirit looking forth from it, fully compensated for the thinning and aging of the lovely face. Diana, in her independent radiance, was there no longer; but David's wife took up her pen to write to David, with a look upon her face, which would have brought David to his knees at her feet, could he but have seen it.
Uncle Falcon's amber eyes gleamed down upon her. They had never twinkled since her wedding night; but they often shone with a strangely comprehending light. Sometimes they said: "We have both won, Diana;" at other times: "We have both lost;" according to her mood. But always they were kindly; and always they gave her sympathy; and, unfailingly, they understood.
The old house rang with the merry voices of children. Notwithstanding the solemn protestations of old Rodgers, they were apparently playing hide-and-seek up and down the oak staircase, along the upper corridors, and in and out of the deep hall cupboards.
Diana was not fond of children. An extra loud whoop or bang in her vicinity, did not call up an indulgent smile upon her face; and, at last, when the whole party apparently fell headlong down the stairs together, Diana, with a frown of annoyance, rang the bell and told Rodgers to request Mrs. Mallory to see that there was less roughness in the games.