She had
taken off her gray felt hat, and she looked older without it, the traveller
thought, in spite of her wealth of waving dark brown hair, gathered into a
great coil of plaits at the back of the graceful head. Perhaps it was that
thoughtful expression which made her look older than she had seemed to him
in the railway carriage, the gentleman argued with himself; a very grave
anxious expression for a girl's face. She had indeed altogether the
aspect of a woman, rather than of a girl who had just escaped from
boarding-school, and to whom the cares of life must needs be unknown.
She was thinking so deeply, that she did not hear the opening of the door,
or her fellow-traveller's light footstep as he crossed the room. He was
standing on the opposite side of the fireplace, looking down at her, before
she was aware of his presence. Then she raised her head with a start; and
he saw her blush for the first time. "You must have been absorbed in some
profound meditation, Miss Lovel," he said lightly.
"I was thinking of the future."
"Meaning your own future. Why, at your age the future ought to be a most
radiant vision."
"Indeed it is not that. It is all clouds and darkness. I do not see that
one must needs be happy because one is young. There has been very little
happiness in my life yet awhile, only the dreary monotonous routine of
boarding-school."
"But all that is over now, and life is just beginning for you.
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