Has she not gone up to the higher school, and
answered _Adsum_ to the call of the Great Master?
Diana remembered these old experiences with cruel pain.
"Girls, as bright and lovable as she is, have drooped and faded away,
just when they seem brightest and happiest," she thought as she watched
Charlotte, and perceived to-day for the first time that the outline of
her fair young cheek had lost its perfect roundness.
But in such a case love can do nothing except watch and wait. That night,
in the course of that girlish talk in Charlotte's bedroom, which had
become a habit with the two girls, Diana extorted from her friend a full
account of the symptoms which had affected her within the last few weeks.
"Pray don't look so anxious, dear Di," she said gaily; "it is really
nothing worth talking of; and I knew that if I confessed to feeling ill
you and mamma would straightway begin to worry yourselves about me. I
have felt a little sick and faint sometimes; and now and then a sudden
dizziness has come over me. It is nothing of any consequence, and it
passes away very quickly. Sometimes I have a kind of torpid languid
feeling, which is scarcely unpleasant, only strange, you know. But what
does it all amount to, except that I am nervous?"
"You must have change of air, Lotta," said Diana resolutely, "and change
of scene. Yes, no doubt you are nervous. You have been kept almost a
prisoner in the house through Mr.
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