Fred M. White

“ Angela was thankful enough to drop into a chair, for she was trembling from head to foot with the surprise and joy and happiness of the moment, and the whole world was swaying unsteadily about her. Two unshed tears stood in her eyes.
"You are very, very good to me," she said, "and I am not used to it. You don't know what it is to find a friend when you have lived all your life amongst strangers, who regard you as a mere unit in a garden of children. ”

“ Angela cried, "don't spoil it like that! I have dreamt some beautiful dreams in my time—dreams which I have in vain tried to put down on cold paper, but they never satisfy me afterwards. Let me tell you. That photograph is my mother's, beyond all doubt. I have one, too, in my bedroom, and more than once I have compared them. And now I know that Mrs. de Courcey is my grandmother."
"Of course. No other conclusion could be possible. There could be no other ending to a romance like this. Won't you sit down? You have a right in this sanctuary, if anybody has." ”

“ As it was, she was a girl who had been educated, ever since she could recollect, in a big institution devoted to the orphans of artists and literary people and other improvidents who take no heed of the morrow, and are content to gather their rosebuds as they blossom casually by the roadside. For Angela had lost her parents many, many years ago, and of them she had only the dimmest recollection. ”

“ Angela stammered. "Of course, I do know, but it's so difficult to explain. You see, I live next door. I am Sir John Osborne's secretary, and he dictates all his work to me. And I—I wrote stories in my spare time. The old house appeals to me, and I have thought about it till I have come to live in a sort of romance of my own. And I wanted to know Mrs. de Courcey so badly. She looks so kind and gentle, and I haven't a friend in the world. ”

“ Then there was an extremely nice-looking young man who came to the house next door most days, and who occasionally accompanied the white-haired lady on her drives. That a deep affection existed between these two, Angela had no doubt. She could see that from the way in which the two tenderly embraced when they met, and parted, for the young man did not live in the house, and occasionally he did not come near for days together. Quite half a dozen of Angela's short stories were written around the white-haired lady next door. ”

“ She was fair enough, and sweet in her own dainty way, with a pleasant smile and a wistful glance in those grey eyes of hers, so that the young man who came from the library occasionally to change Sir John Osborne's books, and who had an artistic mind of his own, compared her to the Huguenot maiden in Millais' famous picture—in which the young man from the bookshop was entirely right, and wiser than he knew. ”

“ As a matter of fact, the Queen's Hostel had originally been two houses thrown into one, and now it was two houses again, the exact counterpart of one another, and somewhere on the wide landing, with its bedrooms leading from a broad gallery, was a panelled frame of a doorway which had once given access to the premises which, in the modern phrase, was now merely "next door." ”

“ She was a woman in the pride of her beauty, witty and accomplished and much sought after—proud, too, as proud as a Lucifer. She married a man older than herself, and from him she inherited her fortune. He died in the course of a year or two, and left my relative with an only child, a daughter. It seems strange that I should be telling you these things, after I have only known you for a few minutes, but you will see presently how necessary it all is."
"I think I see it now," Angela murmured. "I am beginning to comprehend. ”

“ For instance, has that photograph standing on the table anything to do with your visits?"
Here was the touch of romance again, here was the hero who had placed his finger unerringly on the very heart of the mystery. Angela felt herself expanding like a flower. ”

“ In happier circumstances she would have been beloved and popular, and, perhaps, when the good fairy came along, she was marked out to be the happy mother of children and the helpmeet of some good man, who would have loved her, and never been conscious of the fact that she was growing old. ”