When Mrs. Mortomley was sufficiently recovered to endure the fatigue of travelling, the doctors recommended her to leave London and remain for some time at a quiet watering-place on the East coast. Near that particular town resided some relatives of the Trebassons, and to them Mrs. Werner wrote, asking them to call on her friend.
That proved the turning point in Dolly's life, and she took, as generally proves the case, the wrong road. With what anguish of spirit, over what weary and stony paths, through what hedges set thick with thorns, she retraced her steps, it is part of the purpose of this story to show. As matters then stood, she simply went along winding lanes bordered with flowers, festooned by roses, the sun shining over-head, the birds singing all around; went on, unthinking of evil, happier than she had ever been before; satisfied, because at last she had found her vocation.
To enjoy herself—that was the object for which she was created. If she did not say this in so many words, she felt it, felt it like a blessing each night as she laid her head on her pillow—her poor foolish little head which was not strong enough to bear the excitement of the new and strange life suddenly opened before her.
She was young—she was recovering from dangerous illness; she was, notwithstanding her feeble health, bright and gay and sun-shiny. She had plenty of money, for her husband grudged her nothing his love could supply; she was interesting and fresh, and new, and naïve, and she was the dearest friend Leonora Trebasson ever had; what wonder therefore that the people amongst whom she was thrown fussed over, and petted and flattered, and humoured her, till they taught Dolly wherein her power and her genius lay; so that when Mrs. Mortomley returned home she took with her graces previously undeveloped, and left behind the virtue of unconsciousness and the mantle of personal humility which had hitherto clothed her.
Up to that time Dolly had not thought much of herself. Now she was as one possessed of a beautiful face, who having seen her own reflection for the first time can never forget the impression it produced upon her.
In her own country and amongst her own people, Dolly had been no prophet. Rather she had been regarded as a nonentity, and the little world of Dassell wondered at Mr. Mortomley's choice. Amongst strangers Dolly had spread her wings and tried her strength. She felt in the position of a usually silent man, considered by his friends rather stupid than otherwise, who in a fresh place and under unwonted circumstances opens his mouth and gives utterance to words he knew not previously were his to command.
Yes, Dolly would never be humble again. She had lost that attraction, and through all the years to follow, the years filled with happiness and sorrow, exaltation and abasement, she never recovered it.
There are plants of a rare sweetness which die more surely from excess of sunshine than from the severity of frost; common plants, yet that we miss from the borders set round and about our homes with a heart-ache we never feel when a more flaunting flower fails to make its appearance; and just such a tender blossom, just such a healing herb, died that summer in the garden of Dolly's nature.
And she only nineteen! Well-a-day, the plant had not perhaps had time to strike its roots very deep, and the soil was certainly uncongenial. At all events its place knew it no more, and something of sweetness and softness departed with it.
But it was only a very keen and close observer who could have detected all this; for other flowers sprang up and made a great show where that had been—graces of manner, inflections of voice, thoughtfulness for others, which if acquired seemed none the less charming on that account, a desire to please and be pleased, which exercised itself on rich and poor alike—these things and the sunshine of old which she still carried with her, made Dolly seem a very exceptional woman in the bright years which were still to come.