‘Ah! you always postpone it,’ said Miss Grandison, in a tone half playful, half reproachful; ‘and yet it is selfish to murmur. It is for his good that I bear this bereavement, and that thought should console me. Heigho!’
Sir Ratcliffe stepped forward and kissed his niece. Glastonbury was busied on the drawing: he turned away his face.
Sir Ratcliffe took up his gun. ‘God bless you, dear Kate,’ he said; ‘a pleasant drive and a choice sketch. We shall meet at dinner.’
‘At dinner, dear uncle; and better sport than yesterday.’
‘Ha! ha!’ said Sir Ratcliffe. ‘But Armine is not like Grandison. If I were in the old preserves, you should have no cause to jeer at my sportsmanship.’
Miss Grandison’s good wishes were prophetic: Sir Ratcliffe found excellent sport, and returned home very late, and in capital spirits. It was the dinner-hour, and yet Katherine and Glastonbury had not returned. He was rather surprised. The shades of evening were fast descending, and the distant lawns of Armine were already invisible; the low moan of the rising wind might be just distinguished; and the coming night promised to be raw and cloudy, perhaps tempestuous. Sir Ratcliffe stood before the crackling fire in the dining-room, otherwise in darkness, but the flame threw a bright yet glancing light upon the Snyders, so that the figures seemed really to move in the shifting shades, the eye of the infuriate boar almost to emit sparks of rage, and there wanted but the shouts of the huntsmen and the panting of the dogs to complete the tumult of the chase.
Just as Sir Ratcliffe was anticipating some mischance to his absent friends, and was about to steal upon tip-toe to Lady Armine, who was with Ferdinand, to consult her, the practised ear of a man who lived much in the air caught the distant sound of wheels, and he went out to welcome them.
‘Why, you are late,’ said Sir Ratcliffe, as the phaeton approached the house. ‘All right, I hope?’
He stepped forward to assist Miss Grandison. The darkness of the evening prevented him from observing her swollen eyes and agitated countenance. She sprang out of the carriage in silence, and immediately ran up into her room. As for Glastonbury, he only observed it was very cold, and entered the house with Sir Ratcliffe.
‘This fire is hearty,’ said Glastonbury, warming himself before it: ‘you have had good sport, I hope? We are not to wait dinner for Miss Grandison, Sir Ratcliffe. She will not come down this evening; she is not very well.’