“Well, what has kept you? Have you brought the pears?” inquired Helen, languidly.
“No; but I have brought you a piece of good news instead. You can guess what it is, can you not?”
“I can, my dear Regy,” she replied, rising hastily—her active mind having grasped the truth in one second—and kissing him with effusion. “I know there is only one thing that could make you look so happy. Where is Alice?”
“This,” said Geoffrey with mock gravity, taking Reginald’s unwilling hand, “is Petruchio. Katharina has retired. In plain English, Alice was too bashful to return here, and desired me to accept your congratulations as her deputy. I’ve no doubt, Helen, that you and Miss Ferrars will find her in her room.”
Helen and Miss Ferrars were not long in acting on this hint, and found Alice sitting in the window-sill in the moonlight, leisurely unplaiting her long, golden-brown plaits. She received them with smiles and tears.
“I knew you would come,” she said, throwing herself into Helen’s arms; “you have always been our good genius. You have heard it all from him, have you not?” she whispered.
“Only a sketch—a mere outline,” Helen replied, seating herself. “I have a vague idea that you are going abroad, that I am to have charge of Maurice, and that we are all to meet at Looton at Christmas. The moment I saw Regy’s face I knew what had happened. Dear boy! it does one good to see him looking like himself once more.”
The three ladies remained talking together till the small hours, much to the detriment of Alice and Mary’s roses, and the tale of the lost letter was told and re-told, deplored and discussed, at least ten times over.
The next morning Reginald started for Looton, and within a week Sir R. and Lady Fairfax were among the fashionable departures for the Continent, and the party at Monkswood dispersed, to reunite at Christmas.