"No, no, no--you may really trust us. We've all of us travelled before, and we will behave, honour bright!"

[Sidenote: Off for the Holidays]

And with a further chorus of farewells and Christmas wishes, the six or seven girls, varying in age from twelve to seventeen, who had been taking their places in the station 'bus, waved their hands and blew kisses through the windows as the door slammed, and it rolled down the drive of Seaton Lodge over the crisp, hard-frozen snow. And more and more indistinct grew the merry farewells, till the gate was reached, and the conveyance turning into the lane, the noisy occupants were hidden from sight and hearing to the kindly-faced, smiling lady, who, with a thick shawl wrapped about her shoulders, stood watching its departure on the hall steps.

For some moments longer she remained silent, immovable, her eyes directed towards the distant gate. But her glance went far beyond. It had crossed the gulf of many years, and was searching the land of "Never More."

At length the look on her face changed, and with a sigh she turned on her heel and re-entered the house.

And how strangely silent it had suddenly become! It no longer rang with the joyous young voices that had echoed through it that morning, revelling in the freedom of the commencement of the Christmas holidays.

Selina Martyn heaved another sigh; she missed her young charges; her resident French governess had left the previous day for her home at Neuilly; and now, with the exception of the servants, she had the house to herself, and she hated it.

A feeling of depression was on her, but she fought against it; there was much to be done. Christmas would be on her in a couple of days, and no sooner would that be pa.s.sed than the bills would pour in; and in order to satisfy them her own accounts must go out. Then there were all the rooms to be put straight, for schoolgirls are by no means the most tidy of beings. She had plenty of work before her, and she faced it.

But evening came at last, and found her somewhat weary after her late dinner, and disinclined to do anything more, except sit in front of the blazing fire in her own little room and dream. Outside, the frost continued sharper than ever, and faintly there came to her ear the sounds of the distant bells practising for the coming festival, and once more for the second time that day her thoughts flew backwards over the mist of years.

She was a lonely old woman, she told herself; and so she was, as far as relatives went, but miserable she was not. She was as bright and sunny as many of us, and a great deal more so than some. Her life had had its ups and downs, its bright and dark hours; but she had learnt to dwell on the former and put the latter in the background, hiding them under the mercies she had received; and so she became to be known in Stourton as "sunny Miss Martyn," and no name could have been more applicable.

And as the flames roared up the chimney this winter night, she thought of the young hearts that had left her that morning and of their happiness that first night at home. She had known what that was herself.

She had been a schoolgirl once--a schoolgirl in this very house, and had left it as they had left it that morning to return to a loving home. Her father had been well off in those days; she was his only child, and all he had to care for, her mother dying at her birth. They had been all in all to each other, and the days of her girlhood were the brightest of her life.

He missed his "little sunbeam," as he called her, when she was away at Seaton Lodge--for it was called Seaton Lodge even then; but they made up for the separation when the holidays came and they were together once more, and more especially at Christmas-time, that season of parties and festivities. Mr. Martyn was a hospitable man, and his entertainments were many, and his neighbours and friends were not slow in returning his kindnesses; so that Christmas-time was a dream of excitement and delight as far as Selina was concerned.

[Sidenote: A Bank Failure]

But a break came to those happy times: a joint stock bank, in which Mr.

Martyn had invested, failed, and he was ruined. The shock was more than his somewhat weak heart could stand, and it killed him.

His daughter was just sixteen at the time, and the head pupil at Seaton Lodge. She was going to leave at the end of the half-year; but now all was changed. Instead of returning home to be mistress of her father's house, she would have to work for her living, and the opportunity for doing so came more quickly than she had dared to hope.

With Miss Clayton, the mistress, she had been a favourite from the first day she had entered the school, and the former now made her the offer of remaining on as a pupil teacher. Without hesitation the girl accepted.

She had no relatives; Seaton Lodge was her second home; she was loved there, and she would not be dependent; and from that hour never had she to regret her decision.

When her father's affairs were settled up there remained but a few pounds a year for her, but these she was able to put by, for Miss Clayton was no n.i.g.g.ard towards those that served her, and Selina received sufficient salary for clothes and pocket-money.

After the first agony of the shock had pa.s.sed away, her life was a happy if a quiet one. Her companions all loved her; she was to them a friend rather than a governess, and few were the holidays when she did not receive more than one invitation to spend part of them at the homes of some of her pupil friends.

She had been a permanent resident at Seaton Lodge some three years when the romance of her life took place.

Among the elder pupils at that time was Maude Elliott, whose father's house was not many miles distant from her friend's former home. She had taken a great fancy to Selina, and on several occasions had carried her off to spend a portion of the holidays with her, and it was at her home that she had made the acquaintance of Edgar Freeman, Maude's cousin. A young mining engineer, he had spent some years in Newfoundland, and had returned to complete his studies for his full diploma at the School of Mines, spending such time as he could spare at his uncle's house.

Almost before she was aware of it, he had made a prisoner of the lonely little pupil-teacher's heart, and when she was convinced of the fact she fought against it, deeming herself a traitor to her friend, to whom she imagined he was attached, mistaking cousinly affection for something warmer.

Then came that breaking-up for the Christmas holidays which she remembered so well, when she was to have followed Maude in a few days to her home, where she and Edgar would once more be together; and then the great disappointment when, two days before she was to have started, Miss Clayton was taken ill with pneumonia, and she had to stay and nurse her.

How well she remembered that terrible time! It was the most dreary Christmas she had ever experienced--mild, dull, and sloppy, the rain falling by the hour, and fog blurring everything outside the house, while added to this was the anxiety she felt for the invalid.

Christmas Day was the worst of the whole time; outside everything was wet and dripping, and even indoors the air felt raw and chilly, penetrating to the bones, and resulting in a continual state of shivers.

There was no bright Christmas service for Selina that morning: she must remain at home and look after her charge, for, save the invalid, the servants and herself, the house was empty.

But there was one glad moment for her--the arrival of the postman. He was late, of course, but when he did come he brought her a budget of letters and parcels that convinced her she was not forgotten by her absent schoolgirl friends. With a hasty glance over them, she put them on one side until after dinner, when, her patient having been seen to, she would have a certain amount of time to herself.

But that one glance had been sufficient to bring a flush of pleasure to her cheeks, and to invest the gloomy day with a happiness that before was absent. She had recognised on one envelope an address in a bold, firm writing, very different from the neat, schoolgirl caligraphy of the rest; and when her hour of leisure arrived, and over a roaring fire she was able to examine her presents and letters, this one big envelope was reserved to the last.

[Sidenote: Romance]

Her fingers trembled as she opened the still damp covering, and saw a large card with a raised satin medallion in the centre, on which were printed two verses, the words of which caused the hot colour to remount to her cheeks, and her heart to redouble its beats.

There was no mistaking the meaning of those lines; love breathed from every letter, and, with a hasty look round to make sure she was alone, the happy girl pressed the inanimate paper, satin, printer's ink, and colours to her lips as though in answer to the message it contained.

The feeling of loneliness had vanished; there was some one who loved her, to whom she was dearer than all others, and the world looked different in consequence. It was a happy Christmas Day to her after all, in spite of her depressing surroundings; and Miss Clayton noticed the change in her young nurse, and in the evening, when thanking her for all she had done for her, hoped she had not found it "so very dull."

That night Selina Martyn, foolish in her new-found happiness, placed the envelope, around which the damp still hung, beneath her pillow, and dreamed of the bright future she deemed in store for her.

He would write to her, or perhaps come and see her; yes, he would come and see her, and let her hear from his own lips what his missive had so plainly hinted at. And in her happiness she waited. She waited, and waited till her heart grew sick with disappointed longing.

The days pa.s.sed, but never a word came from the one who had grown so dear to her, and as they pa.s.sed the gladness faded from her face, and the light went out from her eyes.

At last she could but feel that she had been mistaken. It was only a foolish joke that had meant nothing, and her heart grew hot within her.

How could she have been so weak and silly as to have imagined such a thing? She put the envelope and its contents away, and, saddened and subdued, fought bravely to return to her former self.

Miss Clayton made a slow recovery, and when convalescent went for a change to the sea, carrying off Selina with her, for she had noticed the change in the girl, and put it down to her labours in the sick-room.

School-time commenced again, but without Maude Elliott as a pupil; she had gone to be "finished" to a school in Lausanne, and it was months before Selina received a letter from her, and then she only casually mentioned that her cousin Edgar had left them directly after Christmas for a good appointment in Brazil, where he expected to remain for some years.

With that letter the last traces of Selina Martyn's romance ended. It had crossed her life like a shooting star, and had only left a remembrance behind.

But that remembrance never entirely died; its sharp edge was dulled, and as the years went on--and in time she took Miss Clayton's place as the head of Seaton Lodge--she came to regard the unrequited bestowal of her young affections as an incident to be smiled over, without any vindictive feelings.

And now, when the silver hairs were beginning to make their appearance among the ruddy gold, she would each Christmas take out from its hiding-place in the old-fashioned, bra.s.s-bound writing-desk the time-stained envelope, and compare the old-world design within with the modern and more florid cards, and in her heart of hearts she found more beauty in the simple wreath of holly with the couple of robins perched above and the bunch of mistletoe hanging below than in its more ornate followers of the present time.

[Sidenote: Christmas Morning]

It was Christmas morning--an ideal Christmas morning. The frost had been keen the previous night, and the branches of the trees had donned a sparkling white livery. The sun shone brightly, but there was little warmth in its rays, and the snow had crunched and chittered as "sunny Miss Martyn" had made her way over it to the church, smiling and sending bright glances to right and left of her, for there were few in Stourton with whom she was not acquainted. And now, her lunch over--she was going out to dinner that evening--she sat by the fire with a big pile of envelopes and parcels beside her. Her pupils never forgot her, and the day would have seemed incomplete to each one of them without a card despatched to Miss Martyn.

Her bundle was a large one, and took some time to get through; and then the cards had all to be arranged on the mantelpiece. But at length her task was done, and as her custom was, she went to the bra.s.s-bound desk standing on a table in the corner, and, taking out the now worn envelope, resumed her seat by the fire.

She had gazed on its contents on many a Christmas day before, but on this particular day--she never knew why--the memory of the sorrow it had caused her seemed keener, and she found the tears were gathering in her eyes, and that one of them had fallen on the edge of the satin medallion bearing the verses.

With her handkerchief she wiped it away, but in doing so a fold of the cambric caught the filagree, and she learnt what she had never known before--that the medallion opened like a little door, and that below it a folded sc.r.a.p of paper lay concealed.

What could it mean?

With fingers that trembled so much that they almost refused their task she took it out, unfolded it, and, spreading it flat, read the words that long years ago would have meant all the world to her.

How cruel had Fate been to her to have hidden them for so long! But the thought only remained in her mind a moment, being blotted out by the remembrance that he was not heartless, as she had grown to believe.