She was expecting a letter from Mrs. Warfield, and saw that she was not to be disappointed when the postmaster, with a benevolent smile, commenced looking over the mail in the Merryman box.
There was one for her, but not addressed in the feminine script of Mrs. Warfield, but in the bold, business hand of Fred.
She had not remembered that it was the fourteenth of February, and with trembling fingers opened it the moment she reached the seclusion of the library at “My Lady’s Manor.”
Fred’s remorse for his fickleness had found relief in rhyme, and under the wing of St. Valentine he poured forth his plaint:
“Each sound hath an echo, like to like doth incline,
But where is the heart that respondeth to mine?
In sunshine and shade life is lonely and drear,
I call my beloved, but no answer I hear.
I seek my beloved as the dew seeks the flower,
As moonbeams seek stream, meadow, forest and bower.
Oh, sadly I wander o’er woodland and lea,
And muse on the one so far distant from me!
I question my fate, and try to divine
If Hilda, my loved one, will ever be mine.
But all, all is silent; I wander alone;
I hope against hope, for I know she is gone.
She is loved by another, his bride she will be
And all pleasures in life must seem hollow to me.”
His reminiscences had a different effect upon Hilda from what he intended. They cheered and warmed her heart, it was true, but not for him. Kind-hearted and sympathetic as she was, the prospective hollowness of Fred’s pleasures did not in the least disturb her serenity. Instead, the last two lines of his valentine held a prophecy which filled her heart with sweet content. In the loving arms of kind Destiny she had been fostered, and she had faith to believe that she would ever there repose. Fred’s written words only confirmed what she in thought was beginning to cherish. She loved Valentine Courtney, and had the conviction that the time would come when he would think of her; for that time she would wait.
It was growing twilight, and folding her letter she left the library, and to her great pleasure saw Archie sitting by the kitchen hearth, who spoke to her as he would have done had he seen her every day.
“Got any valentines yet, Miss Hilda?” asked Chloe. “You must not forgit that you is a valentine yer own self, that Archie done found in the snow.”
“No, Chloe, I can never forget that good Archie saved my life on St. Valentine’s day,” replied Hilda, looking kindly upon the wanderer.
“Archie can find no more people in the snow; he has looked and looked for them,” he said sadly.