“And then?”
The color spread over Jane’s forehead, and she laid her head on Mary’s knee, twisting her apron-strings with girlish modesty, born of real love, which she now really felt for her affianced husband, though she replied as if her sister had spoken plainly.
“Yes; Edward Clark is coming. Oh, Mary——” She broke off abruptly, and turned her face still more away, while the color deepened on her cheek.
“What is it, Janey?”
“He is coming, because—that is, I promised——”
“Well—tell me what you promised.”
Grandmother Derwent’s wheel hummed on, and she heard nothing of their conversation.
“When he was here Sunday,” continued Jane, with that desperate haste with which one rushes into a difficult revelation, “he made me promise to name the day the very next time he came, and he will be here in an hour.”
The pulses of Mary Derwent’s heart grew faint and tremulous, but she forced back the rising emotion, her face grew clear as moonlight, and when she answered, her voice was soft, but with a touch of sadness in it.
“And is that so difficult?” she asked. “Have you not learned by this time what will make your chief happiness?”