“Tell me,” said she, availing herself of the first pause in the attempted conversation between her aunt and me, and speaking fast and low, with her eyes bent on the gold chain—for I now ventured another glance—“Tell me how you all are at Lindenhope—has nothing happened since I left you?”
“I believe not.”
“Nobody dead? nobody married?”
“No.”
“Or—or expecting to marry?—No old ties dissolved or new ones formed? no old friends forgotten or supplanted?”
She dropped her voice so low in the last sentence that no one could have caught the concluding words but myself, and at the same time turned her eyes upon me with a dawning smile, most sweetly melancholy, and a look of timid though keen inquiry that made my cheeks tingle with inexpressible emotions.
“I believe not,” I answered. “Certainly not, if others are as little changed as I.” Her face glowed in sympathy with mine.
“And you really did not mean to call?” she exclaimed.
“I feared to intrude.”
“To intrude!” cried she, with an impatient gesture. “What—” but as if suddenly recollecting her aunt’s presence, she checked herself, and, turning to that lady, continued—“Why, aunt, this man is my brother’s close friend, and was my own intimate acquaintance (for a few short months at least), and professed a great attachment to my boy—and when he passes the house, so many scores of miles from his home, he declines to look in for fear of intruding!”