"I have been trying to get a glimpse of my little friend, Helene," he
said, in explanation of his absence, "but the DeBerczy mansion is as
empty as a church on Monday. They still go to Lake Simcoe in summer,
I suppose. But what does this early flight portend?"
"It was caused solely by the serious nature of your mother's illness.
Madame and Mademoiselle have been now five weeks at 'Bellevue.'"
The young man's face darkened, or rather lost the brightness that
habitually played upon it, like gleams of sunshine on a stream, which,
when disappearing, show the depth of the tide beneath.
"You would scarcely know the young lady now," continued Tredway. "The
difference between fifteen and eighteen is the difference between
childhood and womanhood."
"I suppose she has grown like a young forest tree, and holds her
graceful head almost as high."
"She is well grown, and very beautiful, but not bewitching like your
sister Rose."
"Ah! dear little Rose! But she, too, I doubt not, is a bud no longer.
It's odd how much easier it is for a girl to be a woman than for a boy
to become a man." There was something vaguely suggestive of regret in
the gesture with which young Macleod lightly brushed his short upper
lip, whose hirsute adornment was not, in its owner's estimation, all
that it ought to have been.
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