Queenie's Whim, Volume 3 by Rosa Nouchette Carey

"The true one of youth's love, proving a faithful helpmate in those / years when the dream of life is over, and we live in its / realities. " -- _Southey._

Garth pondered somewhat heavily over Queenie's words that evening. / In spite of his warm human sympathies his imagination was still / undeveloped. Under the margin of those brief sentences lay / unexplored meanings, whole worlds of thought and fancy that he only / dimly comprehended, and yet he felt himself stirred by the girl's / enthusiasm.

"You have done me good," he said to her, when tea was over and Emmie / had betaken herself to Patience. He had risen to take leave, but he / still lingered, as though loath to break the tranquillity of the / scene. "Something had worried me and put me into a bad humor with / myself and all the world, but now I feel better."

"I am glad I have done you good," she returned simply.

When he had left her she knelt down by the hearth again and shielded / her face from the flame. All sorts of bright, visionary pictures / danced under the light of the spluttering fir-knots; thoughts almost / too great and beautiful to be grasped brushed past her like wings.

Queenie was only dreaming, as girls will sometimes, only somehow her / dreams were better than other women's realities. She was thinking of / Garth, marvelling a little over his manner that evening. He had been / kinder, gentler, and yet somehow different.

She was not quite so sure, after all, that he meant to marry Dora. / She had mentioned her name once, and he had answered her in a / constrained manner, and had then changed the subject. Could Miss / Cunningham have given him cause for displeasure?

Queenie was not sufficiently experienced in the ways of the world to / know how quickly hearts are caught at the rebound. She had no idea / of the real state of the case, and that Garth's first thought in his / mortification had been to seek solace in her friendship. She only / knew that somehow Garth had been nicer, and she had done him good.

"What does it matter if one is disappointed here? " thought the young / visionary in that first sweet gush of satisfaction, "that it is all / giving and no return -- at least, not the return that one wants? life / will not last for ever. In that bright hereafter there will be no / marrying or giving in marriage, the Bible tells us that. Nothing but / love, which, after all, is another name for life. We are only hiding / our treasures now, heaping them up in silence and darkness, like that / poor Fraulein Heldrig. By-and-by, up there, those whom we love will / call to us and stretch out their hands, and we shall come bearing our / sheaves with us."

Queenie was weaving all manner of pure womanish fancies as Garth went / back through the rain. The young man's pulses still throbbed with / excitement. His sluggish imagination had been quickened and stirred / within him; he felt with a curious, indefinable sensation that he had / drifted long enough down the tide of circumstance, and that his fate / approached a crisis. Would it be different to what he had planned / all these years?

And that night he thought less of Dora.

How inexplicable are the ways of mankind, even the best of them. / Garth, with all his uprightness and integrity, failed to see that his / conduct lay open to questioning when, after this evening, he began to / haunt the cottage. He was only seeking solace and forgetfulness, a / healing compensation for the hurt under which he still smarted at / intervals; but he had no idea that such self-indulgence might be / fraught with peril to another's peace!

Queenie could not tell him if the intercourse between them were too / pleasant to be perfectly harmless. The fault lay with him, not her. / It was not for her to receive her benefactor coldly; and then if she / could do him good.

It was true Garth seldom came alone, either Cathy or Langley or Ted / were with him; but the invitations to Church-Stile House became more / frequent and pressing.

"Garth likes to see you and Emmie amongst us of an evening," Cathy / said to her more than once. "You know what men are, my dear; they / get tired of their sisters' company, and then Dora is away. I / suppose that makes him so discontented and restless. Poor Florence / is worse, and there is no possibility of Dora's return at present."

"So your brother informed me," returned Queenie demurely; but not to / Cathy did she dare hint that Miss Cunningham's absence was a relief. / She was somewhat afraid of questioning her own feelings too closely / at this time. The incubus that had weighed upon her spirits was / removed, at least temporarily. Life was passing pleasantly with her / just now; she had work enough to occupy her; a pretty cottage where / she and Emmie lived like disguised princesses, and friends whom she / loved and trusted to brighten her leisure hours.

"Shall I ever be so happy again in my life? " she said once to Cathy. / "I think this summer is the sunniest I have ever known. When one is / so thoroughly satisfied one dreads a change."

"I like change," returned Cathy, boldly. "I think a long lease of / monotonous happiness would stupefy me. Life is not a mere / table-land; there are mountains to ascend before one can see the / view, broad rivers to cross, and long deserts to traverse; he is a / poor traveller who fears either."

"You forget Emmie and I are already footsore with our rough / pilgrimage," rejoined Queenie, with her bright quaintness. "We have / been through the Slough of Despond and the Valley of Humiliation."

"And the other valley that was worse," put in Emmie, who was / listening to them; "but you only stood at the entrance, Queen; it was / I who had to fight with all the hobgoblins."