he is dead now, I hear, and there has come in
his place a young clergyman. Shall I strike up a little flirtation with
_him_, eh, Olive?"

But Olive was in no jesting mood. She only shook her head.

Mrs. Rothesay looked with admiration on Sara. "What a blithe young
creature you are, my dear. You win everybody's liking. I wish Olive were
only half as merry as you."

Another arrow in poor Olive's heart!

"Well, we must try to make her so when I come back," said Sara,
affectionately. "I shall have tales enough to tell, perhaps about that
young curate. Nay, don't frown, Olive. My cousin says he is a Scotsman
born, and you like Scotland. Only his father was Welsh, and he has a
horrid Welsh name: Gwyrdyr, or Gwynne, or something like it. But I'll
give you all information."

And then she rose--still laughing--to bid adieu; which seemed so long a
farewell, when the friends had never yet been parted but for one brief
day. In saying it, Olive felt how dear to her had been this girl--this
first idol of her warm heart. And then there came a thought almost like
terror. Though fated to live unloved, she could not keep herself from
loving. And if so, how would she bear the perpetual void--the yearning,
never to be fulfilled?

She fell on Sara's neck and wept. "You do care for me a little--only a
little."

"A great deal--as much as ever I can, seeing I have so many people to
care for," answered Sara, trying to laugh away the tears that--from
sympathy, perhaps--sprang to her eyes.

"Ah, true! And everybody cares for you. No wonder," answered Olive.

"Now, little Olive, why do you put on that grave face? Are you going
to lecture me about not flirting with that stupid curate, and always
remembering Charles. Oh! no fear of that."

"I hope not," said Olive, quietly. She could talk no more, and they bade
each other good-bye; perhaps not quite so enthusiastically as they might
have done a week ago, but still with much affection. Sara had reached
the door, when with a sudden impulse she came back again.

"Olive, I am a foolish, thoughtless girl; but if ever I pained you in
any way, don't think of it again. Kiss me--will you--once more?"

Olive did so, clinging to her passionately. When Sara went away, she
felt as though the first flower had perished in her garden--the first
star had melted from her sky.

Sara gone, she went back to her old dreamy life. The romance of first
friendship seemed to have been swept away like a mornin