“Well, that’s something!” said the Major, beginning to smile again, and walking up and down the room,—“That’s what we may call a bit of heartsease. And now if you are going to do exactly what I want you to do, I suggest that you should take a pretty house on Long Island,—one of those charming and luxurious villas with big gardens, where you can roam about and enjoy yourself,—and let me cross the herring-pond for you and see to the letting of your place in England. You can do something advantageous with it for a year or two, and till that time you might tour through America and see everything worth seeing. And when I have transacted your business I will attend to my own, come out here again, and enjoy myself too!”
And so,—after more discussion, it was finally decided, and so,—much to the pleasure of Miss Letty’s numerous friends in America, it was finally arranged. And “our English Miss Letty” established herself in a beautiful house elegantly furnished, whose windows commanded a fine view of the sea, and which was surrounded by gardens full of wonderful flowers, such as are never seen in England, and a conservatory still more gorgeously supplied,—and though she missed the songs of the sweet English birds, the skylark, the blackbird, the thrush, and the familiar robin, she still had sufficient natural beauty about her to be in her own quiet way thankful for life and its privileges. She began to have serious thoughts of making her home for good in America, for Violet gathered about her such an assemblage of bright young people, and she herself was so much in demand, that she often wondered how it would ever be possible for her to escape from so many pleasant ties and go back to England again. She had written to Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir, giving her address and stating something of her future intentions,—but had received no reply. And Boy never wrote to her at all. But she was not very much surprised at that, as it was most likely his mother would not tell him where she was. And so time flew on insensibly, one year after another, and Violet Morrison, from a little girl, grew up into a pretty maiden of seventeen summers,—graceful and gentle—clever, good, true, and devoted to Miss Letty, who loved her as a daughter, though her old affection for Boy never grew cold. Boy as she knew him,—Boy with all his little droll, pretty ways as a child,—Boy with his sad, wistful, old-fashioned manner, the result of home drawbacks, when he came to see her in Scotland, after which she had lost him for good,—Boy was still the secret idol of her heart next to “Harry,” whose image remained the centre of that inmost shrine. She could not picture Boy at all as a lad of fifteen—to her he was always a child; and on a little bracket near the chair where she was accustomed to sit every day with her needlework, there always stood the only two mementoes she had of him—the toy cow “Dunny,” unchanged in aspect, which he had viewed with such indifference in Scotland, and had left behind him there; and the little pair of shabby shoes, the souvenirs of the first time he ever stayed with her.
One day Violet Morrison asked her uncle about these mysterious relics.
“Why does Miss Letty keep that funny toy cow and those little shoes always beside her?”
Major Desmond puffed at his cigar, and surveyed his niece’s pretty rounded figure, bright face and sweet expression with much inward satisfaction. He met her question with another.
“Have you ever asked her?”
Violet blushed.
“No, I don’t think it’s good taste to ask people about their little fancies. One may hurt them quite unintentionally. And I wouldn’t hurt darling Miss Letty for the world!”
“That’s right, child!” said the Major—“You have the true feeling. But there is not much mystery about that toy cow or those shoes. Miss Letty, bless her heart, has no deep secrets in her life. The cow and the shoes belonged to a little chap named Robert D’Arcy-Muir, but generally called ‘Boy.’ She loved him very much, and wanted to adopt him; but his mother would not let her—and so—and so—she has got the cow and the shoes, and that’s all that’s left of him!”
“I see!” murmured Violet, and her pretty eyes grew moist. After a pause she said, “I suppose she could not love me as she loved Boy?”