Janet's Love and Service

by Margaret M. Robertson

“My friend will be a very happy man, and your friend may be happy too, let us hope.”

But Lilias never answered a word. She followed them, with her eyes, till they disappeared through the door that led to the room beyond; and then she said only,—

“I have made a great mistake.”

Had she made a mistake or had he? A mistake never to be undone, never outlived—a mistake for Graeme, for himself, perhaps for Lilias too. It was not a thought to be borne, and he put it from him sternly, saying it could not have been otherwise—nothing could be changed now; and he was very gentle and tender with his little cousin that night and afterwards, saying to himself that she, at least, should have no cause to grieve in the future, if his loving care for her could avail.

About this time Will was threatened with a serious illness. It did not prove so serious as they at first feared, but it was long and tedious, and gave his eldest sister an excuse for denying herself to many who called, and accounted for her pale looks to those whom she was obliged to see. In the silence of her brother’s sick-room, Graeme looked a great sorrow in the face. In other circumstances, with the necessity laid upon her to deceive others, she might for a time have deceived herself; for the knowledge that one’s love has been given unsought, is too bitter to be accepted willingly. But the misery of those long silent nights made plain to her what the first sharp pang had failed to teach her.

In the first agony of her self-scorn, she saw herself without excuse. She was hard and bitter to herself. She might have known, she thought, how it was with Allan and his cousin. During all those years in which she had been a stranger to them both, they had loved each other; and now, with no thought of her, they loved each other still. It was natural that it should be so, and right. What was she, to think to come between them with her love?

She was very bitter to herself and unjust in her first misery, but her feeling changed. Her heart rebelled against her own verdict. She had not acted an unmaidenly part in the matter. She had never thought of harm coming to her, or to anyone, out of the pleasant intercourse of these months—the renewal of their old friendship. If she had sinned against Lilias, it had been unconsciously. She had never thought of these things in those days.

If she had only known him sooner, she thought, or not so soon, or not at all! How should she ever be able to see them again in the old unrestrained way? How should she be able to live a life changed and empty of all pleasure?

Then she grew bitter again, and called herself hard names for her folly, in thinking that a change in one thing must change all her life. Would not the passing away of this vain dream leave her as rich in the love of brothers and sister, as ever? Hitherto their love had sufficed for her happiness, and it should still suffice. The world need not be changed to her, because she had wished for one thing that she could not have. She could be freed from no duty, absolved from no obligation because of this pain; it was a part of her life, which she must accept and make the best of, as she did of all other things that came upon her.

As she sat one night thinking over the past and the future, wearily enough, but without the power to withdraw her mind from what was sad in them, there suddenly came back to her one of Janet’s short, sharp speeches, spoken in answer to a declaration half vexed, half mirthful, made by her in the days when the mild Mr Foster had aspired to be more to her than a friend.