“Just above yon sandy bar,
As the day grows fainter and dimmer,
Lonely and lovely, a single star
Lights the air with a dusky glimmer.
“Into the ocean faint and far
Falls the trail of its golden splendour,
And the gleam of that single star
Is ever refulgent, soft, and tender.”
Both young men stopped short at once. There was one figure on the beach, one solitary female figure.
“It is she,” half-whispered Douglas, pressing Leonard’s arm.
Then they advanced.
“Effie!”
“Oh, Leonard!”
Next moment she was sobbing on her brother’s shoulder. They were tears of reaction, but they washed away in their flood-gates the sorrow and the hope deferred of long, dreary years.
“How silly to cry!” she said at last, giving her hand to her brother’s friend with a bonnie blush.
“Right welcome you are, Douglas,” she added. “Oh, how glad I am to see you both!”
“There now, Eff,” said her brother, in his old cheery way, “no more tears; it must be all joy now, joy and jollity.”