Every one always was struck with Joyce at first, and I had been so anxious that Harrod should duly admire her that I had purposely refrained from saying much to raise his expectations, so that no doubt his surprise was as great as his admiration; and I had never seen my sister look handsomer than she did that night.
There was a little increased air of dignity about her since she had been to London, and had been thrown a little more on her own resources, which sat with a pretty style upon her serene and modest loveliness. She looked people in the face as she never used to do, raising her eyes without lifting that little head of hers that was always just slightly bent, like some regal lily or drooping tulip. She talked a little more, and she blushed seldomer.
She did not talk much to Mr. Harrod, but then he was very busy explaining his scheme of water-supply to Mr. Hoad, who had dropped in to supper. But she talked quite brightly to Squire Broderick when he came, as he had promised, to bid her welcome home, and shone in her very best light, just as I had wished she should shine—the beautiful hostess of our home.
It was a happy evening, typical of our happy home-life, that, flecked as it may have been by little troubles, as the summer sky is flecked with clouds, was yet fair and warm as the bright July days that followed one another so radiantly.
Ah me, how little I guessed that night that there were not many more such happy family parties in store for us when we should sit around that board united, and without a gap in the family circle! It is good that we cannot see into the future. No gathering cloud disquieted me that night; no fears for myself nor for any of those whom I loved; I was absorbed in that one throbbing, all-engrossing dream which was slowly beginning to fill my life.
Absorbed, yet not quite so much absorbed but that I could feel sorry for my sister's sake that one who had been there was now absent: where Frank Forrester had been Trayton Harrod now was. I could not honestly say to myself that I wished it differently, but I was sorry for Joyce. She, however, did not seem to be depressed, she was very bright; the gladness she had in being at home again gave her beauty just that touch of sparkle which it sometimes lacked.
It was a warm evening, and when supper was over we drew our chairs around the low porch that led onto the lawn, and took our ease in the half-light. It was very rarely that we sat thus idle, but sometimes, of summer evenings, mother was fond of a bit of leisure herself, and she never made us work when she was idle. The scent of the sweet-peas and the roses came heavy upon the air; the dusk was still luminous with lingering daylight, or with heralding a moon that had not yet risen.
"I hear you have got Southdowns into your flock, Harrod," said the squire. "I hope you won't have any difficulty with them. I feel confident they ought to do, but when I tried the experiment it certainly failed."
"Perhaps they weren't carefully looked after," answered Harrod. "Of course you have got to acclimatize animals just as well as people, and the more carefully the more delicate they are."