Explore "A Bird of Passage" by B.M. Croker on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"But I am constant as the Northern Star."
IT was not dark, it was not even dusk, when Helen, having fought her way through the laurustinus and syringa of the pleasure-grounds, mounted the hill which lay between Crowmore and Ballyredmond. Here she paused on the summit, and looked back. What a change even two days can make in one's whole existence! Two evenings previously she had been picking mushrooms on this very hill in her ordinary, tranquil frame of mind; now, glancing down on the old Castle, Crowmore was to have a new master, and she must leave its shelter! Her annual pittance would soon be due, and she would thus be enabled to return to her duties, at Malvern House. Well, she had never intended to quarter herself altogether on her cousins! With a half-stifled sigh she turned her face towards Ballyredmond, whose gables and chimneys peeped above the trees. And so Gilbert Lisle was under that roof-probably at dinner at that moment, sitting opposite to Miss Calderwood! "Of _course_ he is engaged to her," she said aloud; "Dido only denied it because the wish was father to the thought! I dare say they will be married soon; perhaps before I leave. Well, I think I shall be able to decorate the church, and even to accept an invitation to the wedding-if I get one!"