“Did I ever meet a girl whom I imagined might be my Mrs Wolff! Is that what you want to ask? Yes - once!—for a passing moment. We met, and I caught a glimpse of her face, and recognised it as the fulfilment of a dream. Then she disappeared. Romantic, isn’t it, and disappointing into the bargain? I am not a sentimental fellow, I suppose, for I have never even imagined myself in love, though I have known scores of charming girls; but at that moment I realised possibilities!”
“But, oh, how disappointing! Did she really disappear? Couldn’t you find her? Is there no chance that you may meet again?”
“Sometimes I think there is; at other times it seems impossible. In any case, I am powerless to help, or to hinder.”
“I should not say that if I were a man! I would search the world over till I found her!” Mollie sat silently, with bent head and thoughtful air, then suddenly lifted her eyes to his with a sweet, grave glance. “I hope you will meet! I hope you will be very happy together some day,—you, and your Lady of Dreams!”
Jack looked at her, and his face changed strangely. He said nothing, not even a word of thanks for her good wishes, and presently got up from his seat, and limped into the house, leaving Mollie depressed and self-reproachful.
“I suppose I should not have said it. He thinks it ‘gush,’ and won’t condescend to answer. I wonder what she was like? Dark, I suppose, and stately, and serious; the very opposite from me. She will appear again some day, and they will be married and look so handsome together. I’m awfully, awfully glad; at least, I should be if Uncle Bernard were not ill. That makes one feel so dull and wretched that one can’t be glad about anything,” said poor Mollie to herself.
Jack did not appear again; and she was not in the mood to take any interest in Ruth’s photographic efforts, so she strolled through the grounds and gathered an armful of flowers to send home to the little mother. This was always a pleasant undertaking, and just now there was a special reason for choosing the freshest and most fragrant blossoms, for the last few letters had hinted at a recurrence of the old money troubles.
“Something is up!” wrote Trix, in school-girl parlance. “Father and mother are talking in his den all the evening, and she comes down to breakfast with her eyes swollen with crying, and he looks like a sheet, and doesn’t eat a bite. Horrid old business again, of course. How I hate it! We shall have to scrape a little more, I suppose; and where we are to scrape from, I’m blest if I know! My blue serge is green, and the boys’ Etons shine like the rising sun. It was a fine day on Sunday, and they fairly glittered going to church. I don’t want to give you the blues, but thought I’d better tell you, so that you could write to cheer them up, and also be more assiduous in your attentions to the old man. You must and shall get that fortune between you, or we shall be bivouacking in the workhouse before you can say Jack Robinson! My heart too truly knows the signs full well!”
Mollie recalled these expressive sentences, and sighed in sympathy.
“Poor old Trix! too bad that she should be left at home to bear the brunt, while we are living in the lap of luxury. I expect it is just one of the old crises, and we shall worry through as usual, but it is depressing while it lasts. I can’t endure to see mother with red eyes. She will smile when she sees these roses, bless her! I defy anyone not to enjoy opening a box of flowers; and when we go home we will cheer them up again,—fortune or no fortune. Dear old Trix shall have some of my fineries made down, as a change from the green serge.”