"They will help, Mam'selle, and you have no right to stand in Donelle's way now that we have gone so far. Some day Donelle can repay me herself, she has great gifts."
Jo thought hard and quickly. In her heart she had always felt this day would come, lately she had been haunted by it. It was inevitable. Only God knew how she dreaded the separation, but she would not withhold her hand.
"I suppose, Mam'selle, this is what Motherhood means?" Alice Lindsay spoke the fact boldly, splendidly.
"It's all right," said Jo, "it's all it should mean. I'm glad I do feel as I do about her."
"And, Mam'selle, this girl loves you very tenderly. Sometimes I think we ought to tell her——'
"No, no, Mrs. Lindsay." Jo started and flushed.
"When she's found her place and made it sure: when she has so much that this won't matter, then she shall know everything. I haven't overlooked this, but I couldn't stand it now. I want her to be able to understand."
"All right, Mam'selle. And now it is your part to make her feel that it is your desire that she should make the most of her gifts. Send her forth happy, Mam'selle, that will mean much to her."
So Jo began the new role and actually made Donelle unhappy in the effort to achieve the reverse. Alone, in the white house at Point of Pines, Jo found her father's old clothes and contemplated them gravely. She was slipping back, poor soul, to her empty life.
Donelle had not accepted the proposed plans without a struggle. She was wonderfully sensitive and compassionate and her quick imagination made it possible for her to understand what the future would mean to poor Jo. Then, too, she shrank from the uprooting. Her dreams of what lay before were exciting and thrilling, but with sincere kinship she loved the quiet hills, the marvellous river, and the peace, freedom, and simplicity which were her birthright.