"Mr. Roy is waiting below ma'am—has been waiting some time; but he says if you are busy he will not disturb you; he will come to-morrow instead."
"Tell him I shall be very glad to see him to-morrow."
She spoke through the locked door, too feeble to rise and open it; and then lying down on her bed and turning her face to the wall, from sheer exhaustion fell fast asleep.
People dream strangely sometimes. The dream she dreamt was so inexpressibly soothing and peaceful, so entirely out of keeping with the reality of things, that it almost seemed to have been what in ancient times would be called a vision.
First, she thought that she and Robert Roy were little children—mere girl and boy together, as they might have been from the few years' difference in their ages—running hand in hand about the sands of St. Andrews, and so fond of one another—so very fond! With that innocent love a big boy often has for a little girl, and a little girl returns with the tenderest fidelity. So she did; and she was so happy—they were both so happy. In the second part of the dream she was happy still, but somehow she knew she was dead—had been dead and in paradise for a long time, and was waiting for him to come there. He was coming now; she felt him coming, and held out her hands, but he took and clasped her in his arms; and she heard a voice saying those mysterious words: "In heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God."
It was very strange, all was very strange, but it comforted her. She rose up, and in the twilight of the soft spring evening she washed her face and combed her hair, and went down, like King David after his child was dead, to "eat bread."
Her young people were not there. They had gone out again; she heard, with Mr. Dalziel, not Mr. Roy, who had sat reading in the parlor alone for upward of an hour. They were supposed to be golfing, but they staid out till long after it was possible to see balls or holes; and Miss Williams was beginning to be a little uneasy, when they all three walked in, David and Janetta with a rather sheepish air, and Helen beaming all over with mysterious delight.
How the young man had managed it—to propose to two sisters at once, at any rate to make love to one sister while the other was by—remained among the wonderful feats which David Dalziel, who had not too small an opinion of himself, was always ready for, and generally succeeded in; and if he did wear his heart somewhat "on his sleeve," why, it was a very honest heart, and they must have been ill-natured "daws" indeed who took pleasure in "pecking at it."
"Wish me joy, Auntie!" he cried, coming forward, beaming all over, the instant the girls had disappeared to take their hats off. "I've been and gone and done it, and it's all right. I didn't intend it just yet, but he drove me to it, for which I'm rather obliged to him. He can't get her now. Janetta's mine!"
There was a boyish triumph in his air; in fact, his whole conduct was exceedingly juvenile, but so simple, frank, and sincere as to be quite irresistible.