“So much the better; it will be all new to you. Sit down and write to Miss Edna at once, and tell her that you will be glad to spend a week or two with her and her mother. Let me see, what time did she say? The first week in January, that will fit in well. I am going up to town on the seventh, and we can travel together. That will do famously, will it not, mother?”
“Do you think you can spare me, mother?” asked Bessie anxiously.
And Mrs. Lambert answered without hesitation: “I certainly can and will spare you, Bessie, and I am very grateful to Mrs. Sefton for her invitation. My dear,” as the girl still hesitated, “your father and I have long wished you to have a little holiday, so your mind may be quite at rest.” And after this Bessie was satisfied.
But it was with very different feelings that Bessie left her home in the mild-tempered sunshine of that January day, to those when, seven months ago, she paid her first visit to The Grange. Things had been well with her then; no trouble since her brother’s death had checkered her bright, sunshiny existence. She had gone in holiday mood to seek fresh interests and new enjoyments; but now how utterly changed were her feelings! She could no longer look out upon the world through the rose-colored spectacles that youth generally wears. For the second time in her life she had been brought face to face with death, and the great reality had sobered her. A deep sense of responsibility, of the inner meaning of life, seemed to cast a weight of gravity over her. A bond of sympathy seemed to unite her with all those who were in sorrow; so many were unhappy, so many had lost their nearest and dearest. Oh, how she longed to comfort them all!
Bessie was not one to speak of her feelings; the best of her life was out of sight. Only once she said to Christine, as they were walking home from church in the starlight:
“People are very proud when their relatives achieve any worldly honor or attain to any rank, yet no one seems to feel an added dignity when any dear one has finished his or her earthly conflict most gloriously, and has won a heavenly crown. Why is it, Chrissy? Somehow it seems such an honor to me to feel I have a sister as well as a brother in heaven; it makes one more careful not to do anything unworthy of them.”
Bessie’s gray eyes had a softer look in them than they had of old; her voice had grown more gentle. Mrs. Sefton, who was at the station, hardly recognized the girl as she came quickly toward her; the black dress and crape bonnet made her look older, but when she smiled it was the same Bessie.
“My dear, are you very tired?” she asked, looking at her kindly. “It is such a cold evening that I dare not let Edna come with me, for her cough is still troublesome. I had some difficulty with her, but at last I got my way. Edna is not nearly so self-willed as she used to be.” But here Mrs. Sefton sighed.
“Do you think Edna is really better?” asked Bessie, when the carriage door was closed, and they drove away from the station.