“He is quite well, and rambling about as usual. Well, now, I must really go. Good-by. So glad to have seen you,” and she once more nodded affectionately to Emma. I opened the door for her, and she rustled down-stairs with a footstep as light and rapid as if she had been but eighteen. In another moment we heard the bang of the carriage door—a bang that seemed to say to me, “Thank goodness, that is over!”—and then she drove off.
“How kind!” cried Emma. “Just her dear old self, isn’t she, darling? Now, come, what did I tell you?” stroking my smileless face.
“I don’t think her kindness is so very remarkable, after all,” I grumbled, as I tidied up a chair-back.
“How difficult it is to please you young people! What more would you expect, than to be asked to dinner on Christmas Day, to have a carriage sent for you, and to remain at the Abbey all night?”
I made no reply. Perhaps I was grasping, perhaps I was too sanguine, too childish; but I had expected something totally different. Happy are those who do not expect!
“Well, has she been to call yet?” demanded Miss Skuce, in a querulous voice, as she entered our apartments the next morning.
“Oh yes, last evening,” I answered promptly, with a sense of relief.
“Last evening! Nonsense!” was the rude response. “I never saw the carriage. It wasn’t in the street.”
“At any rate, it was here yesterday,” replied Emma, rather stiffly.