Her mother, watching her as she tossed from side to side of the big chair and breathed many a deep-drawn sigh, half divined that the restlessness was mental as well as physical. For several weeks, she had felt instinctively that her child was keeping something from her. It gave the mother's heart intense pain to think that Juliet was withdrawing her confidence, bus she would not attempt to force it. She waited, hoping and believing that Juliet would soon of her own accord confide to her whatever it was that troubled her.
"There are your sisters," said Mrs. Tracy, as the sound of the house door being opened by a latch-key reached her ears.
Juliet muttered something unintelligible. She had reasons of her own for not welcoming the return of Hannah and Salome, who had been taking afternoon tea with Mrs. Hayes at the rectory.
The next minute they entered the room; Salome rigidly neat in her deaconess-like dress, and Hannah well but soberly dressed, and looking very big, strong, and imposing in her warm mantle and velvet bonnet.
"Well, dears," said Mrs. Tracy, in her cheerful tones, "have you had a nice time?"
"I cannot say that it has been particularly pleasant," replied Hannah, in her distinct, deliberate utterance. "We are later than we thought we should be; but Mrs. Hayes asked us to stay a little while after the others had left. She had something to say to us."
It seemed to Juliet that Hannah looked at her as she spoke with peculiar significance in her glance. The immediate effect of the glance was to drive the girl into irritable speech.
"Why can't you shut the door after you when you come into a room, Salome?" she demanded. "There is a most frightful draught coming to me."
"You should have stayed in bed, if you feel every current of air so," said Hannah. "The room is already a great deal too warm to be healthy. Ah, I thought so," she added, as she consulted a small thermometer hanging against the wall, "seventy degrees! That is a great deal too high."
"I don't care whether it is seventy or eighty," muttered Juliet, "I mean to be warm. Oh, mother, don't fidget with that screen!" she exclaimed impatiently, as Mrs. Tracy tried to adjust the screen behind her chair so as to shelter her more effectually. "I do wish you would let me have a little peace."