Thus, for a little time, the two remained in each other's embrace, blissful and silent. All this time Agnes Barker looked on, with a dawning sneer upon her lip.
At length, Mabel lifted Lina's face from her bosom, and kissing the white forehead, bade her sit down and partake of the breakfast that stood upon a little table at her side. She filled a cup with chocolate from the small silver kettle, and pressed it upon the young girl.
"My heart is too full—I cannot taste a drop," said Lina.
"Nonsense, child," answered Mabel, and, with a laugh and a bright look, she hummed—
"Lips, though blooming, must still be fed,
For not even love can live on flowers."
Why did the rosy blood leap into that young face at the word "Love?" Why did those eyelids droop so bashfully, and the little hand begin to shake under the snowy cup it would gladly have put down? Lina remembered now that her secret was still untold, while Mabel, startled by her blushes, thought of the first words that had marked their interview, and grew timid as one does, who has suffered and dreads a renewal of pain.
Thus these two persons, loving each other so deeply, shrunk apart, and were afraid to speak. Poor Lina, with her exquisite intuition, which was a remarkable gift, drooped bashfully forward, the roses dying on her cheek beneath the frightened glance which Mabel fixed upon them, and her eyelids drooping their dark lashes downward, as the leaves of a japonica cast shadows.
At last Mabel spoke low and huskily, for, like all brave persons, she only recoiled from pain for the moment. Her heart always rose to meet its distresses at once, and steadily.
"Tell me, Lina, what is it? You have not heard of my escape, and yet something disturbed you."
"Yes, mamma!"