Their absence left a gloom on everything. The very morning seemed darkened by the want of their smiling faces and cheerful garments. A breakfast-table at which no lady presides, is always a desert—and so was this; spite of its glittering silver, its transparent china, and the warm October sunshine, which penetrated the broad eastern window with a thousand cheerful flashes, scarcely broken by the gorgeous tree boughs, or the climbing vines that waved and clustered around it.
Gen. Harrington was out of sorts, as your polished man of the world sometimes proves when his circle of admirers is a household one. The absence of his wife was an annoyance which, under the circumstances, he could not well resent, but that Lina should have been so indolent, or so forgetful, he considered a just cause of complaint. Thus in that smooth, ironical way, which usually expressed the General's anger, he began a series of complaints, that in another might have been considered grumbling, but in a man of Gen. Harrington's perfect breeding, could have been only an expression of elegant displeasure.
Ralph, radiant with his new-born happiness, and full of generous enthusiasm, strove to dissipate this gloom by extra cheerfulness; but this only irritated the grand old gentleman, who stirred the cream in his coffee, and buttered his delicate French rolls in dignified silence, into which his displeasure had at last subsided.
James Harrington, unlike his irritable father, or the bright animation of his brother, was so rapt in heavy thought, that he seemed unmindful of all that was going on. He had cast one quick, almost wild glance at the head of the table as he entered, and after that took his seat like one in a dream.
"Let me," said Ralph, taking the second cup from the servant, and carrying it to the General, "let me help you, father."
"My boy," said the General, "when will you learn to comprehend the refined taste which I fear you will never emulate? You ought to know, sir, that a breakfast without a lady is an unnatural thing in society, calculated to disturb the composure and injure the digestion of any gentleman. As Mrs. Harrington is not able to preside, will you have the goodness to inform Miss Lina that her seat is empty?"
"I—I don't know where Lina is, father. Indeed, I have been searching and searching for her all the morning," answered the youth with a vivid blush.
"Go knock at her door. She may be ill," answered the General, "and, in the meantime, inquire after Mrs. Harrington, with my compliments."
Ralph grew crimson to the temples. A hundred times before, he had summoned Lina from her slumbers, but now it seemed like presumption.
It was strange, but James Harrington had not inquired after either of the ladies; but he looked up with an eager flash of the eyes when the General gave his message; and, as Ralph hesitated, he said in a grave voice—