Agnes impatiently held out a large roll of paper, but almost screamed with astonishment on looking up, to perceive that she had addressed Captain De Crespigny, evidently that moment arrived from a long journey.
"Good morning, Miss Dunbar. We are well met!" said he, with rather satirical emphasis. "I am in a very cut-throat humor to-day, and shall certainly put an end to little Lord Wigton!"
"You have nearly put an end to me," replied Agnes, unable to steady her voice; "but I am rather glad to see you! Perhaps you may be allowed to remain here, though that tiresome man does so teaze me about singing."
"Wigton told me he was coming to see, or rather to hear Marion!" said Sir Patrick, emerging from a distant window.
"To hear me!" exclaimed Marion, with unfeigned surprise and perplexity, while thunder and lightning both lowered on the forehead of her sister. "That must be a mistake! I heard nothing of any appointment, and have not had a minute's conversation with Lord Wigton since we arrived at Harrowgate. He heard me only once by accident, and probably never will again."
"Unless by design!" whispered Agnes, angrily. "Marion, you have certainly some underhand way of getting on with people, which baffles my comprehension!"
Marion turned away, and silently resumed her place beside Sir Arthur, who had been amusing himself by standing at the window, while she told him what carriages came round to the door, what parties of pleasure were setting out or returning, and what travelling equipages appeared in sight, of which seldom fewer than ten or twelve arrived in a day; and by ascertaining the coat-of-arms or coronets emblazoned on the panels, she sometimes formed a tolerable accurate guess who might probably be their occupants. After talking together with great vivacity for some time, Sir Arthur suddenly felt the arm of Marion on which he was leaning, give an almost convulsive start, while she seemed with difficulty to suppress a half-uttered exclamation of delighted astonishment. She now leaned eagerly out of the window, to examine a travelling chariot which had driven up to the door, from whence a lady, apparently in the utmost extreme of weakness, was carefully supported out by a gentleman, and before another moment could elapse, Marion had rushed down stairs, and was clasped in the arms of Clara Granville.
"Did you get my letter?" exclaimed her friend, in feeble and agitated accents, while, after the first rapturous greetings, they had retired alone into a sitting-room. "No! is that possible? How could the post have been so long delayed? But perhaps it may be as well, for there was grief as much as joy in it."
Marion observed now with alarm, that the appearance of Clara, always interesting, had become almost painfully so. The summer bloom had entirely vanished from her face, and not only had her form shrunk, but there was a deep and settled sadness in the expression of her eye, when she added,
"The doctors have ordered me to go by easy stages abroad, but they recommended me first to try a few weeks here. The sight of you will do me more good than any medicine, and I had little difficulty—very little indeed, Marion—in persuading Richard to take the Granby on our way to the south of France, where we are to go health-hunting and scenery-hunting during the approaching winter; but you must see now, as I do, and as everybody does, except my dear brother himself, that I am hastening fast to that country where the sun always shines, and the flowers never fade."