Looranna by M.A. Mccarter — Read

The entrance of Dr. O'Meara into the sickroom has carried Grace's thoughts once more away to the vast fields, and to the winding banks where the River Darling flows away back at her old home. " 'Looranna,' dear old 'Looranna!' " she whispers in her soul; and, in fancy, once more she, with Kathleen O'Meara, the doctor's sister, scampers and plays over the flower-decked fields. In her fancy's dream this man, the doctor, is again their guide, and leads them in their canter over plains and through woods. It was he who first taught Grace and Kathleen how to master the fiery steed—in fact, he was Grace's hero of her childhood days.

When Dr. Frank O'Meara rises from his examination of little Effie, and looks at the nurse, an astonished light for a moment beams in his eyes as he gazes in glad surprise on the kind, womanly face of Grace Moore, and the hands of the two friends meet in the firm clasp of true friendship. (There are many clasps of hands, but theirs is the warm clasp of true and lasting friendship.) The doctor, too, dreams back, and, with the electricity of thought, he is once more a college boy, hastening home for the Christmas vacation, and always to be welcomed by the bright smile and happy laughter of his little friend and neighbour, Grace Moore. As his thoughts fly on, a black cloud darkens his face whilst he thinks, for he can remember, also, one day when he hurried home—this time a man full of hopes, for he had achieved, and won, the highest honours his heart had longed for; but not all—he had not won all his heart had longed for—for this time he had come, with hope in his soul, to ask Grace to be his wife only to find that she was betrothed to Jack Mannering. The cloud still deepens as he turns away.