family, but the two heads of it bore their burden with great equanimity, nay, cheerfulness; saying sometimes, with a smile which had the faintest shadow of pathos in it, "that they liked to have young life about them." And by degrees they grew younger themselves; less of the old bachelor and old maid, and more of the happy middle-aged couple to whom heaven gave in their decline a St. Martin's summer almost as sweet as spring. They were both too wise to poison the present by regretting the past-a past, which if not wholly, was partly, at least, owing to that strange fatality which governs so many lives, only some have the will to conquer it, others not. And there are two sides to everything: Robert Roy, who alone knew how hard his own life had been, sometimes felt a stern joy in thinking no one had shared it. Still, for a long time, there lay at the bottom of that strong gentle heart of his, a kind of remorseful tenderness, which showed itself in heaping his wife with every luxury that his wealth could bring; better than all, in surrounding her with that unceasing care which love alone teaches, never allowing the wind to blow on her too roughly, his "poor lamb," as he sometimes called her, who had suffered so much. They are sure, humanly speaking, to “live very happy to the end of their days." And I almost fancy sometimes, if I were to go to St. Andrews, as I hope to do many a time, for I am as fond of the Aged City as they are, that I should see those two, made one at last, after all those cruel divided years, wandering together along the sunshiny sands, or standing to watch the gay golfing parties; nay, I am not sure that Robert Roy would not be visible sometimes, in his red coat, club in hand, crossing the Links, a victim to the universal insanity of St. Andrews, yet enjoying himself, as golfers always seem to do, with the enjoyment of a very boy. She is not a girl, far from it; but there will be a girlish sweetness in her faded face till its last smile. And to see her sitting beside her husband on the green slopes of the Castle garden, knitting perhaps, while he reads his eternal newspapers, is a perfect picture. They do not talk very much, indeed they were neither of them ever great talkers. But each knows the other is close at hand, ready for any needful word, and always ready with that silent sympathy which is so mysterious a thing, the rarest thing to find in all human lives. These have found it and are satisfied. And day by day truer grows the truth of that sentence, which Mrs. Roy once discovered in her husband's pocket-book, cut out of a newspaper-she read and replaced it without a word, but with something between a smile and a tear-" Young loves are passionate, old loves are faithful; but the very tenderest thing in all this world is a love revived." THE END. M ESSRS. MACMILLAN & CO. are now publishing a Three-and-Sixpenny Edition of the Novels by the Author of John Halifax, Gentleman," which are in their hands. The volumes are uniform in style with the recently published Editions of Charles Kingsley, Miss Yonge, Thomas Hughes, and Marion Crawford. The first volume was published on March 1st, and the series is continued monthly in the following order : My Mother and I. With Illustrations by J. McL. September, 1890. Miss Tommy. A Medieval Romance. With Illus trations by FREDERICK NOEL PATON King Arthur: Not a Love Story October. November. MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. |