At dinner, I took my favourite seat, where, seen through this greatest of the three windows,—a cedar with its “broad, green layers of shade,” is intersected by a beech—still faintly yellow—as I have seen it, autumn after autumn, from the same spot. It seemed just like old times. I felt happy; as if something pleasant were about to happen, and said as much.
Mrs. Granton looked delighted.
“I am sure, my dear, I hope so. And I trust we shall see you here very often indeed. Only think, you have never been since the night of the ball. What a deal has happened between then and now.”
I had already been thinking the same.
It must be curious to any one who, like our Lisa, had married a stranger and not an old acquaintance, to analyse afterwards the first impressions of a first meeting—most likely brought about by the merest chance. Curious to try and recall the face you then viewed critically, carelessly, or with the most absolute indifference—how it gradually altered and altered, till only by a special effort can memory reproduce the pristine image, and trace the process by which it has become what it is now—a face by itself, its peculiarities pleasant, its plainnesses sacred, and its beauties beautiful above all faces in the world.
In the course of the afternoon, Colin was turned out, that is corporeally, for his mother talked about him the whole time of his absence, a natural weakness rather honourable than pardonable. She has been very long a widow, and never had any child but Colin.
During our gossip, she asked me if we had seen Doctor Urquhart lately, and I said no.
“Ah, that is just like him. Such an odd creature. He will keep away for days and weeks, and then turn up as unexpectedly, as he did here yesterday. By the by, he inquired after you—if you were better. Colin had told him you were ill.”
I testified my extreme surprise and denial of this.
“Oh, but you looked ill. You were just like a ghost the day Mrs. Treherne was at Rockmount—my son noticed it ay, you need not flush up so angrily—it was only my Colin's anxiety about you—he was always fond of his old play-fellow.”