CHAPTER XXXVIII.

CONCERNING SISSY.

Percival had announced the fact of the Lisles' presence in Bellevue street to Sissy in a carefully careless sentence. Sissy read it, and shivered sadly. Then she answered in a peculiarly bright and cheerful letter. "I'm not fit for him," she thought as she wrote it. "I don't understand him, and I'm always afraid. Even when he loved me best I felt as if he loved some dream-girl and took me for her in his dream, and would be angry with me when he woke. Miss Lisle would not be afraid. It is the least I can do for Percival, not to stand in the way of his happiness—the least I can do, and oh, how much the hardest!" So she gave Thorne to understand that she was getting on remarkably well.

It was not altogether false. She had fallen from a dizzy height, but she had found something of rest and security in the valley below. And as prisoners cut off from all the larger interests of their lives pet the plants and creatures which chance to lighten their captivity, so did Sissy begin to take pleasure in little gayeties for which she had not cared in old days. She could sleep now at night without apprehension, and she woke refreshed. There was a great blank in her existence where the thunderbolt fell, but the cloud which hung so blackly overhead was gone. The lonely life was sad, but it held nothing quite so dreadful as the[page 186] fear that a day might come when Percival and his wife would know that they stood on different levels—that she could not see with his eyes nor understand his thoughts—when he would look at her with sorrowful patience, and she would die slowly of his terrible kindness. The lonely life was sad, but, after all, Sissy Langton would not be twenty-one till April.

Percival read her letter, and asked Godfrey Hammond how she really was. "Tell me the truth," he said: "you know all is over between us. She writes cheerfully. Is she better than she was last year?"

Hammond replied that Sissy was certainly better. "She has begun to go out again, and Fordborough gossip says that there is something between her and young Hardwicke. He is a good fellow, and I fancy the old man will leave him very well off. But she might do better, and there are two people, at any rate, who do not think anything will come of it—myself and young Hardwicke."

Percival hoped not, indeed.

A month later Hammond wrote that there was no need for Percival to excite himself about Henry Hardwicke. Mrs. Falconer had taken Sissy and Laura to a dance at Latimer's Court, and Sissy's conquests were innumerable. Young Walter Latimer and a Captain Fothergill were the most conspicuous victims. "I believe Latimer rides into Fordborough every day, and the captain, being stationed there, is on the spot. Our St. Cecilia looks more charming than ever, but what she thinks of all this no one knows. Of course Latimer would be the better match, as far as money goes—he is decidedly better-looking, and, I should say, better-tempered—but Fothergill has an air about him which makes his rival look countrified, so I suppose they are tolerably even. Neither is overweighted with brains. What do you think? Young Garnett cannot say a civil word to either of them, and wants to give Sissy a dog. He is not heart-whole either, I take it."

Hammond was trying to probe his correspondent's heart. He flattered himself that he should learn something from Percival, let him answer how he would. But Percival did not answer at all. The fact was, he did not know what to say. It seemed to him that he would give anything to hear that Sissy was happy, and yet—

Nor did Sissy understand herself very well. Her grace and sweetness attracted Latimer and Fothergill, and a certain gentle indifference piqued them. She was not sad, lest sadness should be a reproach to Percival. In truth, she hardly knew what she wished. One day she came into the room and overheard the fag-end of a conversation between Mrs. Middleton and a maiden aunt of Godfrey Hammond's who had come to spend the day. "You know," said the visitor, "I never could like Mr. Percival Thorne as much as—"

Sissy paused on the threshold, and Miss Hammond stopped short. The color mounted to her wintry cheek, and she contrived to find an opportunity to apologize a little later: "I beg your pardon, my dear, for my thoughtless remark just as you came in. I know so little that my opinion was worthless. I really beg your pardon."

"What for?" said Sissy. "For what you said about Percival Thorne? My dear Miss Hammond, people can't be expected to remember that. Why, we agreed that it should be all over and done with at least a hundred years ago." She spoke with hurried bravery.

The old lady looked at her and held out her hands: "My dear, is the time always so long since you parted?"

Sissy put the proffered hands airily aside and scoffed at the idea. They had a crowd of callers that afternoon, but the girl lingered more than once by Miss Hammond's side and paid her delicate little attentions. This perplexed young Garnett very much when he had ascertained from one of the company that the old woman had nothing but an annuity of three hundred a year. He hoped that Sissy Langton wasn't a little queer, but, upon his word, it looked like it.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

[page 187]