Late in the afternoon she dressed herself. She reached Fieldhead, and appeared in the oak parlour just as tea was brought in. Shirley asked her why she came so late.
"Because I have been making my dress," said she. "These fine sunny days began to make me ashamed of my winter merino, so I have furbished up a lighter garment."
"In which you look as I like to see you," said Shirley. "You are a lady-like little person, Caroline.—Is she not, Mrs. Pryor?"
Mrs. Pryor never paid compliments, and seldom indulged in remarks, favourable or otherwise, on personal appearance. On the present occasion she only swept Caroline's curls from her cheek as she took a seat near her, caressed the oval outline, and observed, "You get somewhat thin, my love, and somewhat pale. Do you sleep well? your eyes have a languid look." And she gazed at her anxiously.
"I sometimes dream melancholy dreams," answered Caroline; "and if I lie awake for an hour or two in the night, I am continually thinking of the rectory as a dreary old place. You know it is very near the churchyard. The back part of the house is extremely ancient, and it is said that the out-kitchens there were once enclosed in the churchyard, and that there are graves under them. I rather long to leave the rectory."
"My dear, you are surely not superstitious?"
"No, Mrs. Pryor; but I think I grow what is called nervous. I see things under a darker aspect than I used to do. I have fears I never used to have—not of ghosts, but of omens and disastrous events; and I have an inexpressible weight on my mind which I would give the world to shake off, and I cannot do it."
"Strange!" cried Shirley. "I never feel so." Mrs. Pryor said nothing.
"Fine weather, pleasant days, pleasant scenes, are powerless to give me pleasure," continued Caroline. "Calm evenings are not calm to me. Moonlight, which I used to think mild, now only looks mournful. Is this weakness of mind, Mrs. Pryor, or what is it? I cannot help it. I often struggle against it. I reason; but reason and effort make no difference."
"You should take more exercise," said Mrs. Pryor.