“But that can never happen,” said she.
If Jean was grave and silent for a while at this time, no one noticed it but her aunt, and she did not remark upon it. Indeed she was grave and a little sad herself for she greatly missed both mother and daughter, who had been her dear friends and daily visitors for many a year, and she confessed to a strange feeling of loneliness in her house by the sea.
Jean came often to see her and so did George, but she seldom spoke about the Calderwoods to either of them. Now and then a letter came from Marion to Jean or to her aunt, but after the very first these letters said nothing about coming home to Portie again.
And Jean waited. Not unhappily. Far from that, for her life was a busy one. She had much to do and much to enjoy in her father’s house and beyond it. She strove to forget herself, and to remember others, and made no one anxious or curious because of her grave looks and her sadness.
She just waited, telling herself that if so it must be, she would do as her aunt had done, and wait on till the end.
Chapter Nineteen.
George.
They had three years and more without a break of the happy life to which Jean had looked forward when her brother came home. The days seemed all alike in the quiet routine into which they fell; but no one wished for a change.