It was a rare and a beautiful sight, and to me, who loved the world in which I lived so well, it should have brought joyousness. And yet it did not please me. I would rather have had it chill and stormy, with a thick fog creeping up out of the sea—a fog such as that through which Trayton Harrod's tall figure had loomed the first time that I had met him, just on this very tract of land.
CHAPTER XXVII.
On the day following I met Frank Forrester in the lane by the vicarage.
I verily believe I had forgotten all about him during the past few days, but that very morning I had remembered that he was most likely at the Priory for that garden-party to which father had so annoyingly forbidden us to go; and I vowed in my heart that, by hook or by crook, my sister should see him before he left the neighborhood. It was a regular piece of good-luck my meeting him thus; but I thought, when he first saw me, that he was going to avoid me. He seemed, however, to think better of it, and came striding towards me, swaying his tall, lithe body, and welcoming me even from a distance with the pleasant smile, without which one would scarcely have known his handsome face. I was glad he had thought better of it, for I should certainly not have allowed him to pass me.
"Holloa, Miss Margaret," said he, when we were within ear-shot; "this is delightful. I was afraid I shouldn't get a chance of seeing any of you, as I am forbidden the house. How are you?"
"I am very well," said I, looking at him.
I fancied he had grown smarter in his appearance than he used to be; there was nothing that I could take hold of, and yet somehow he seemed to me to be changed.
"Why weren't you at the garden-party yesterday?" asked he. "It was quite gay."
"Yesterday! Was it yesterday?" said I, half disappointed. "We weren't allowed to go, you know. We wanted to go very much."