Not until to-day had she realized how much of the pleasure of her life at the parsonage was derived from the sunny presence and sympathizing companionship which she was now about to lose, certainly for many years, probably for ever.

Although Mr. Lindsay’s age doubled her own, he had entered so fully into her fancies, humoured so patiently her girlish caprices, with such tireless interest aided her in her studies, that she seemed to forget his seniority, and treated him with the quiet affectionate freedom which she would have indulged toward a young brother.  Next to the memory of her mother, she probably gave him the warmest place in her heart, but she was a remarkably reserved, composed, and undemonstrative child, by no means addicted to caresses, and only in moments of deep feeling betrayed into an impulsive passionate gesture, or a burst of emotion.

Sincerely attached to the entire household, who had won not merely her earnest gratitude, but profound respect and admiration, she was conscious of a peculiar clinging tenderness for Mr. Lindsay, which rendered the prospect of his departure the keenest trial that had hitherto overtaken her; and when she thought of the immense distance that must soon divide them, the laborious nature of the engagement that would detain him perhaps a lifetime in the far East, her own dim uncertain future looked dark and dreary.  The blazing sun went down at last, the fiery radiance of the pulpit window faded, and the birds that frequented the quiet sheltered enclosure sought their perches in the thickest foliage where they were wont to sleep.  But there was no abatement of the heat.  The air was sulphurous, and its inspiration was about as refreshing as a draught from Phlegethon; while the distant occasional growl had grown into a frequent thunderous muttering that deepened with every repetition, and already began to shake the windows in its reverberations.  Two ladies in deep mourning, who had been hovering like black spectres around a granite sarcophagus, where they deposited and arranged the customary Sabbath arkja of white flowers, concluded their loving tribute to the sleeper, and left the churchyard; and save the continual challenge of the thunder drawing nearer, the perfect stillness ominous and dread, which always precedes a violent storm, seemed brooding in fearful augury above the home of the dead.

With one foot resting on Hero’s neck, Regina sat leaning against the window facing, very pale, but bravely fighting this her first great battle with sorrow.  Her face was eloquent with mute suffering, and her eyes were full of shadows that left no room for tears.

“Going away to India, perhaps for ever!” was the burden of this woe that blanched even her lovely coral lips until their curves were lost in the pallor of her rounded cheek and dimpled chin.  “Going away to India;” like some fateful rune presaging dire disaster, it seemed traced in characters of flame across the glowing sky, and over the stony monuments that studded the necropolis.