“Good-by,” she said, just touching his hand.
He turned as he was driving off and lifted his hat, the sunshine of his eyes fell full upon her; her smile was but a pitiful effort; what right had he to say such a thing to her?
“I hope,” she said, as she walked up the path, “that I shall never see you again.”
“I wish that I had never seen her,” he ejaculated, touching his horse with the whip.
And thus a part of the old year died and was buried.
Shaking with cold, not daring to go away by herself, she irresolutely turned the knob of the sitting-room door; her face, she was aware, was not in a state to be taken before her mother’s critical eyes; but her heart was so crushed, she pitied herself with such infinite compassion, that she longed for some one to speak to her kindly, to touch her as if they loved her; any thing to take some of the aching away from that place in her heart where the tears were frozen.
When she needed any mothering she gave it to herself; with her arms around her shivering, shrinking self, she was beseeching, “Be brave; it’s almost over.”
In the old days, the impulsive little Tessa had always chided herself; the sensitive little Tessa had always comforted herself; the truthful, eager, castle-building little Tessa had always been her own refuge, shield, adviser, and best comforter.
With more bosom friends than she knew how to have confidences with, with more admiring girl friends than she could find a place for, with more hearts open to her than to any one girl at school, Tessa the child, Tessa the maiden, and Tessa the woman had always lived within herself, leaned upon herself.
Mr. Hammerton said that she was a confutation of the oak and vine theory, that he had stood and stood to be entwined about, but that she would never entwine.