"I do not understand you,"—with cold reproof; "surely you are wandering from the subject: we were saying nothing about last comers or new faces. If you happen to be in a bad temper, Sir Guy, I really think it a little hard that you should come here to inflict it upon me."
"I am not in a bad temper,"—indignantly.
"No? It seems very like it," says Miss Chesney. "I can't bear cross people: they are always saying unpleasant as well as unmeaning things. New faces, indeed! I really wish Archibald would come; he is always agreeable, and never starts distasteful topics. Ah, here he is! Archie, how long you have been! I thought you were never coming! Sir Guy is in one of his terrible moods, and has frightened me out of my life. I was in danger of being lectured off the face of the earth. No woman should be pitied but she that has a guardian! You have come to my rescue barely in time: another minute, and you would have found only a lifeless Lilian."
Sir Guy, black with rage, turns aside. Archibald, ignorant of the storm brewing, sinks beside her contentedly upon the grass.
CHAPTER XVI.
"O spirit of love, how fresh and quick thou art!"—Shakespeare.
It is the gloaming,—that tenderest, fondest, most pensive time of all the day. As yet, night crouches on the borders of the land, reluctant to throw its dark shadow over the still smiling earth, while day is slowly, sadly receding. There is a hush over everything; above, on their leafy perches, the birds are nestling, and crooning their cradle songs; the gay breeze, lazy with its exertions of the day, has fallen asleep, so that the very grasses are silent and unstirred. An owl in the distance is hooting mournfully. There is a serenity on all around, an all-pervading stillness that moves one to sadness and fills unwittingly the eyes with tears. It is the peace that follows upon grief, as though the busy world, that through all the heat and turmoil of the day has been weeping and groaning in anguish, has now for a few short hours found rest.
The last roses of summer in Mrs. Arlington's garden, now that those gay young sparks the bees have deserted them, are growing drowsy, and hang their heavy heads dejectedly. Two or three dissipated butterflies, fond of late hours and tempted by the warmth, still float gracefully through the air.
Cecilia, coming down the garden path, rests her arms upon her wicket gate and looks toward Chetwoode.