‘Oh, Jack! this is dreadfully like good-bye now!’
‘It is good-bye. Elly, you give the boys a kiss when they go away. Won’t you give me one too? Oh, not if you don’t like; it’s only because it seems cold, just shaking hands, after what you have said.’
There was no blush on John’s simple face. He meant in absolute sincerity what he said. The girl reddened, being, perhaps, a little more advanced in life, though a year younger than the boy. She turned away her head for the moment, but then turned to him again with a steady look, and suddenly inclined her head towards him.
‘Yes, Jack; it will be like being brother and sister really, and for good.’
‘For good,’ he repeated, touching her fresh cheek with honest, tender lips; and then they went back sedately to the house, very quiet, with a certain awe upon them. For it is a ceremonial, and a sad one, to say that first good-bye.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
LONDON: PRINTED BY DUNCAN MACDONALD, BLENHEIM HOUSE.