"I do, I do; if I have anything to forgive," said Clair, turning his pale face aside, as he pressed her hand.
Mabel bowed gently over it, then withdrawing it from his grasp, glided from him, and re-entered the house.
There was one other duty to be performed before she left Aston, which tried her courage as much as any other; this was taking leave of her mother's two old and faithful servants—but she knew that such a parting, though so trying was one expected of her, and she would not deny them the pleasure of seeing her, perhaps, for the last time. When, however, the hour which she had appointed for their coming arrived, her heart sank within her, and her spirits entirely failed, when she met their familiar faces almost as sad as her own.
"It is like losing the very light of my eyes to see you go away, Miss Mabel," said old John.
"You have served us long and well—and that thought will be very cheering when I am gone," said Mabel, "but I want to know what you mean to do—I want to think you are comfortable when I am away. Will you go to service again?"
"I do not think I could serve another master or mistress," said old John, decidedly. "If so be you wanted a servant—"
"Then," said Mabel, "you would be mine, of course; but that cannot be; and I have been thinking, that if you had a garden of your own—a nursery garden, I mean, you would be independent."
"I was thinking of that myself, ma'am," said old John, with a pleased expression at finding his wants divined—"and if—but I don't like to say it—there, I can't," he said, walking to the window.
"John was going to say, ma'am," interrupted Betsy, seeing that Mabel looked puzzled, "that if it would not hurt your feelings, he should like to keep on the old garden still—if he could have a cottage built where our house stood—if, that is, you do not object."
Mabel checked her rising emotion, and said, cheerfully.