She looked up a little surprised at the tall, broad-shouldered young man who was making his way across the room.
'Royal told me I should find you here, Miss Lambert. I hope your niece has recovered the fatigue of her journey.'
'I am not Aunt Milly; I am Olive,' returned the girl, gravely, but not refusing the proffered hand. 'You are my father's new curate, Mr. Marsden, I suppose?'
'Yes; I beg your pardon, I have made a foolish mistake I see,' returned the young man, confusedly, stammering and flushing over his words. 'Royal sent me in to find his aunt, and—and—I did not notice.'
'What does it matter?' returned Olive, simply. The curate's evident nervousness made her anxious to set him at his ease. 'You could not know; and Aunt Milly looks so young, and my illness has changed me. It was such a natural mistake, you see,' with the soft seriousness with which Olive always spoke now.
'Thank you; yes, of course,' stammered Hugh, twirling his felt hat through his fingers, and looking down at her with a sort of puzzled wonder. The grave young face under the quaint head-dress, the soft dark hair just parted on the forehead, the large earnest eyes, candid, and yet unsmiling, filled him with a sort of awe and reverence.
'You have been very ill,' he said at last, with a pitying chord in his voice. 'People do not look like that who have not suffered. You remind me,' he continued, sitting down beside her, and speaking a little huskily, 'of a sister whom I lost not so very long ago.'
Olive looked up with a sudden gleam in her eyes.
'Did she die?'
'Yes. You are more fortunate, Miss Lambert; you were permitted to get well.'