“I begin to think this is mysterious, and that you must be a witch, or something uncanny. I know all mamma’s friends, and I am positive not one of them ever lived at Cliffe-on-Sea.”
“And you are quite sure of that? Has your mother never mentioned the name of a Dr. Lambert?”
“Dr. Lambert! No. Wait a moment, though. Mamma is very fond of talking about old days, when she was a girl, don’t you know, and there was a young doctor, very poor, I remember, but his name was Herbert.”
“My father’s name is Herbert, and he was very poor once, when he was a young man; he is not rich now. I think, many years ago, he and your mother were friends. Let me tell you all I know about it. About a year ago he asked me to post a letter for him. I remember reading aloud the address in an absent sort of way: ‘Mrs. Sefton, The Grange, Oatlands, Kent;’ and my father looked up from his writing, and said, ‘That is only a business letter, Bessie, but Mrs. Sefton and I are old correspondents. When she was Eleanor Sartoris, and I was a young fellow as poor as a church mouse, we were good friends; but she married, and then I married; but that is a lifetime ago; she was a handsome girl, though.’”
“Mamma is handsome now. How interesting it all is! When I get home I shall coax mamma to tell me all about it. You see, we are not strangers after all, so we can go on talking quite like old friends. You have made me forget the time. Oh dear, how dark it is getting! and the gas gives only a glimmer of light.”
“It will not be quite dark, because of the snow. Do not let us think about the time. Some of the passengers are walking about. I heard them say just now the man must have reached Cleveley, so the telegram must have gone—we shall soon have help. Of course, if the snow had not ceased falling, it would have been far more serious.”
“Yes,” returned Miss Sefton, with a shiver; “but it is far nicer to read of horrid things in a cheerful room and by a bright fire than to experience them one’s self. Somehow one never realizes them.”
“That is what father says—that young people are not really hard-hearted, only they do not realize things; their imagination just skims over the surface. I think it is my want of imagination helps me. I never will look round the corner to try and find out what disagreeable thing is coming next. One could not live so and feel cheerful.”
“Then you are one of those good people, Miss Lambert, who think it their duty to cultivate cheerfulness. I was quite surprised to see you look so tranquil, when I had been indulging in a babyish fit of crying, from sheer fright and misery; but it made me feel better only to look at you.”
“I am so glad,” was Bessie’s answer. “I remember being very much struck by a passage in an essay I once read, but I can only quote it from memory; it was to the effect that when a cheerful person enters a room it is as though fresh candles are lighted. The illustration pleases me.”