'I cannot deny it, dear.'
'I am so afraid of responsibility that it seemed easier to die than to face it. You were right; I was selfish to want to leave you all.'
'You must try to rejoice with us that you are spared.'
'Yes, I will try,' with a sigh; but as she began to look white and exhausted, Mildred thought it wiser to drop the conversation.
The family circle was again complete in the vicarage, and in the evenings a part of the family always gathered in the sickroom. This was hailed as a great privilege by the younger members—Roy, Polly, and Chriss eagerly disputing it. It was an understood thing that Richard should be always there; Olive seemed restless without him. Roy was her next favourite; his gentleness and affection seemed to soothe her; but Mildred noticed that Polly's bright flow of spirits somewhat oppressed her, and it was not easy to check Chriss's voluble tongue.
One evening Ethel was admitted. She had pleaded so hard that Richard had at last overcome Olive's shrinking reluctance to face any one outside the family circle; but even Olive's timidity was not proof against Ethel's endearing ways; and as Miss Trelawny, shocked and distressed at her changed appearance, folded the girl silently in her arms, the tears gathered to her eyes, and for a moment she seemed unable to speak.
'You must not be so sorry,' whispered Olive, gratefully; 'Aunt Milly will soon nurse me quite well.'
'But I was not prepared for such a change,' stammered Ethel. 'Dear Olive, to think how you must have suffered! I should hardly have known you; and yet,' she continued, impulsively, 'I never liked the look of you so well.'
'We tell her she has grown,' observed Richard, cheerfully; 'she has only to get fat to make a fine woman. Aunt Milly has contrived such a bewitching head-dress that we do not regret the loss of all that beautiful hair.'
'Oh, Cardie, as though that mattered;' but Olive blushed under her brother's affectionate scrutiny. Ethel Trelawny was right when she owned Olive's appearance had never pleased her more, emaciated and changed as she was. The sad gentleness of the dark, unsmiling eyes was infinitely attractive. The heavy sallowness was gone; the thin white face looked fair and transparent; little rings of dark hair peeped under the lace cap; but what struck Ethel most was the rapt and elevated expression of the girl's face—a little dreamy, perhaps, but suggestive of another and nobler Olive.