Her hair was dark as her mother’s,—­even darker.  Seen by the side of Miss O’Hara’s, the mother’s hair was certainly not black, but one could hardly think that hair could be blacker than the daughter’s.  But hers fell in curling clusters round her neck,—­such clusters as now one never sees.  She would shake them in sport, and the room would seem to be full of her locks.  But she used to say herself to her mother that there was already to be found a grey hair among them now and again, and she would at times shew one, declaring that she would be an old woman before her mother was middle-aged.

Her life at Ardkill Cottage was certainly very dull.  Memory did but little for her, and she hardly knew how to hope.  She would read, till she had nearly learned all their books by heart, and would play such tunes as she knew by the hour together, till the poor instrument, subject to the sea air and away from any tuner’s skill, was discordant with its limp strings.  But still, with all this, her mind would become vacant and weary.  “Mother,” she would say, “is it always to be like this?”

“Not always, Kate,” the mother once answered.

“And when will it be changed?”

“In a few days,—­in a few hours, Kate.”

“What do you mean, mother?”

“That eternity is coming, with all its glory and happiness.  If it were not so, it would, indeed, be very bad.”

It may be doubted whether any human mind has been able to content itself with hopes of eternity, till distress in some shape has embittered life.  The preachers preach very well,—­well enough to leave many convictions on the minds of men; but not well enough to leave that conviction.  And godly men live well,—­but we never see them living as though such were their conviction.  And were it so, who would strive and moil in this world?  When the heart has been broken, and the spirit ground to the dust by misery, then,—­such is God’s mercy—­eternity suffices to make life bearable.  When Mrs. O’Hara spoke to her daughter of eternity, there was but cold comfort in the word.  The girl wanted something here,—­pleasures, companions, work, perhaps a lover.  This had happened before Lieutenant Neville of the 20th Hussars had been seen in those parts.

And the mother herself, in speaking as she had spoken, had, perhaps unintentionally, indulged in a sarcasm on life which the daughter certainly had not been intended to understand.  “Yes;—­it will always be like this for you, for you, unfortunate one that you are.  There is no other further look-out in this life.  You are one of the wretched to whom the world offers nothing; and therefore,—­as, being human, you must hope,—­build your hopes on eternity.”  Had the words been read clearly, that would have been their true meaning.  What could she do for her child?  Bread and meat, with a roof over her head, and raiment which sufficed for life such as theirs, she could supply.  The life would have been well enough had it been their fate, and within their power, to earn the bread and meat, the shelter and the raiment.  But to have it, and without work,—­to have that, and nothing more, in absolute idleness, was such misery that there was no resource left but eternity!