"But for her, I could not have managed," she often reflected. "I should have had to give it up—it would not have been fair to Paulina, and then where could I have gone, for home in my own country I have none? And oh, how, through all the novelty and amusement and excitement of travelling, in spite of the kindness I meet with, oh how I sometimes long to be in dear grandmother's old turret room, listening to the faint whirr of her spinning-wheel, and the louder sound of the waves breaking on the cliffs below! I can feel the breeze that always blew in if the casement in the deep window-seat was open; I can taste the salt flavour of the spray that sometimes on stormy days flew up to where I sat! Oh dear old home! I wonder if Paulina ever feels about it in the least as I do?" and then she would fall to wishing that she could somehow earn money enough to buy back the old "eyrie," and be its little châtelaine. "How I would enjoy receiving Paulina, and making her enjoy it!"
But for these day-dreams she had not much leisure, and she knew that she should not indulge in them. Still the longing was always there, and as time went on it grew more persistent and intense.
"It is just home-sickness," thought Clodagh, and she felt that she must not give way to it.
"I wish I could meet 'Cousin Felicity' again," she often said to herself. "She was so wise. I am sure she would advise me how to keep cheerful and content. And yet she must have understood, for I remember her asking me if I loved my home very dearly."
The weeks and months and almost the years—for one had fully gone, and the second since Clodagh's arrival on this side of the water was well on its way—passed, and then one day came little looked-for tidings.
The cousins were just then again at St. Aidan's, which Paulina, who had great faith in its waters, made a point of visiting once or twice a year. One morning, when Clodagh came in from doing some little commissions on the Parade, she found her friend, pale as death, half fainting in her chair, an open letter in stiff, formal writing on her knee.
"Clodagh, oh Clodagh," she exclaimed, "read, read. Who could have dreamt of it?"
And truly her distress was not to be wondered at, for the news was appalling, being nothing less but that of the poor young woman's almost total ruin by the failure of a bank. Clodagh for a moment felt stunned, but she soon collected herself and did her best to comfort her cousin.
"Take courage, dear Paulina," she said. "There is no need for despair. You have still enough for comfort of a simple kind, and I will work for you. It will be my turn to repay your generosity."
"Dear child," murmured her poor cousin, all her high spirit broken, "you have already far more than repaid anything I have done for you. But don't leave me, promise me. If we must starve, let it be together."