He came quite unexpectedly—at least to May—one October afternoon, when the three ladies were sitting together in the stately, old-fashioned garden of the Hall. The leaves were floating downward from the trees, but the air was scarcely chill. It was like a summer day, yet the tints and hues of the fading year were stamped on flower and leaf. And somehow May was thinking of this, of the change which comes to every living thing, when the sound of a firm step on the gravel behind the seat where she was sitting, made her raise her head and look around.
And the two sisters did the same thing, at the same instant, and then started to their feet.
“Ralph!” they both cried, and hastily went forward to meet their nephew with outstretched hands.
But May only rose; a strange nervousness came over her; seeing Ralph Webster again recalled so much.
“Will you pardon my intrusion?” he asked a moment later, as he took her hand in his.
“Of course—I—I am very glad—” she faltered in reply.
“As my aunts have entirely forsaken me,” went on Webster with a smile, “I thought I might venture to look them up.”
“We have often talked of you, my dear,” said kind Miss Webster.
“Yes, my dear, often,” sighed Miss Eliza.