Addie and her mother looked at each other. They too, like the coachman, had been struck with Mr. Harcourt's choice of pronouns.
But the prudent lady did not forget herself or her duty a moment. She made them all come in from the bleak piazza, and had the light turned down in the parlor, so that they could see through the window just as well,—a more comfortable point of observation.
But De Forrest quite ostentatiously muffled himself up to his eyes, that he might go down and "help."
Approaching timidly, he said to Lottie as she stood at the window,
"Can you not take another knight into your service this evening?"
"O, yes, Julian," she replied good-naturedly; "a regiment in so good a cause as this. Hasten to the shore. You may be of some possible help;" and, with a gesture of dismission, she turned again to her watch.
De Forrest slowly departed, feeling that this was a very different farewell from that bestowed on Hemstead, of which he had caught an aggravating glimpse.
While the others were eagerly talking and surmising, and the servants bustling about, preparing for those who would soon be brought in, chilled and wet with spray, Lottie stood at her post motionless, oblivious of all around, and as intent upon Hemstead's light as if she were to be rescued instead of Miss Martell.
CHAPTER XXVI.
ON A CRUMBLING ICE-FLOE.
The plan suggested by their host, of sending their sleigh home by the ferry, while they crossed in a boat, just suited Miss Martell, and she proposed having a good vigorous pull at the oars herself. She had always been fond of out-of-door sports, a taste which her father had judiciously encouraged; and thus had saved her, no doubt, from the life of an invalid, for she had inherited the delicacy of a feeble mother, who years before, in spite of all that wealth could do to prevent it, had passed away.