"Good-bye, William Craven, for two years at any rate; and if I never see you again, God bless you, for you've been a true friend to me and that poor child who has nobody else to look to," and then, before Mr. Craven could cross the room, she was gone.
"I wonder," said I, "if it will be two years before we see her again?"
"No, nor the fourth of two years," answered my employer. "There is something queer about that house."
"You don't think it is haunted, sir, do you?" I ventured.
"Of course not," said Mr. Craven, irritably; "but I do think some one wants to keep the place vacant, and is succeeding admirably."
The question I next put seemed irrelevant, but really resulted from a long train of thought. This was it:
"Is Miss Elmsdale very handsome, sir?"
"She is very beautiful," was the answer; "but not so beautiful as her mother was."
Ah me! two old, old stories in a sentence. He had loved the mother, and he did not love the daughter. He had seen the mother in his bright, hopeful youth, and there was no light of morning left for him in which he could behold the child.
To other eyes she might, in her bright spring-time, seem lovely as an angel from heaven, but to him no more such visions were to be vouchsafed.