--God forgive me! how could I
be so heartless as mention her!"
"Her name will always be pleasant in my ears," returned Donal. "I
was thinking of her--that was how you felt as if you saw her! You
did not really see anything, did you?"
"Oh, no!"
"She is nearer me than that," said Donal. "She will be with me
wherever I am; I shall never be sad. God is with me, and I do not
weep that I cannot see him: I wait; I wait."
Miss Graeme was in tears.
"Mr. Grant," she said, "she is gone a happy angel to heaven instead
of a pining woman! That is your doing! God bless you!--You will let
me think of you as a friend?"
"Always; always: you loved her."
"I did not at first; I thought of her only as a poor troubled
creature! Now I know there was more life in her trouble than in my
content. I came not only to love her, but to look up to her as a
saint: if ever there was one, it was she, Mr. Grant. She often came
here after I showed her that poem. She used to walk here alone in
the twilight. That horrid Miss Carmichael! she was the plague of her
life!"
"She was God's messenger--to buffet her, and make her know her need
of him. Be sure, Miss Graeme, not a soul can do without him."
Here Mr. Graeme joined them.
"I do not think the earl will last many days," said Donal. "It would
be well, it seems to me, at once upon his death to take possession
of the house in the town.
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