"There was a brief silence; I could feel that James was still looking at me, and did not raise my eyes. Mrs. Harrington was playing with her flowers, and when she spoke again had forgotten the whole matter—the merest trifle to her, indeed to anybody possessed of a grain of common sense, but of so much importance to ridiculous, fanciful me.
"'This is so perfect a day,' she said, 'that I think we must go out to drive. Will you go with us, James?'
"'I fear that I shall be unable,' he replied, 'I have several letters to write, and the American mail goes out to-day.'
"'Then we will ask Miss Eaton, Mabel,' said Mrs. Harrington, 'she always likes to go with us.'
"I could have dispensed with this young lady's society, but of course I did not say so, and I had the decency to be ashamed of my unaccountable feeling toward her. She was so very beautiful that to anybody less captious than I had grown, even nonsense from such lips as hers would have been more graceful and acceptable than the wisest remark from almost any other woman.
"'I am sorry you can't go, James,' Mrs. Harrington was saying, when I had finished my little mental self-flagellation for all my misdemeanors and evil thoughts, and could listen to what they were saying.
"'Are you particularly anxious to have me go with you, this morning, petite mia?' James asked, with more animation than he had before displayed.
"'Indeed I am! I feel babyish to-day, and want to be petted! If you don't go, I shall think you are beginning to tire of this poor invalid woman who is so great a trouble to you all.'
"'My mother could never think that,' he said hastily, rising, and moving close to her sofa, where he stood gently smoothing her beautiful hair with his hand.
"'Besides,' she went on, 'these women are just no party at all. Mabel's head is full of the book, and between us, poor little Miss Eaton will have a wearisome drive of it.'