"I expect," she answered sympathizingly, "that it is an offer of his hand and heart."
"Don't mention it, Charlotte."
"Never while I have breath."
In an hour she told Phoebe, who told Alice, who told Charles, and there it ended. It was an offer, as Charlotte predicted. My first! I was crestfallen! I wrote a reply, waited till everybody had gone to breakfast, and slipping into his room, pinned it to the pincushion. In the evening he asked if I ever sang "Should these fond hopes e'er forsake thee." I gave him the "Pirate's Serenade" instead, which his mother declared beautiful. I saw Alice and Charles laughing, and could hardly help joining them, when I looked at Bill, in whose countenance relief and grief were mingled.
It was a satisfaction to us when they went away. Their visit was shortened, I suspected, by the representations Bill made to his mother. She said, "Good-by," with coldness; but he shook hands with me, and said it was all right he supposed.
The day they went I had a letter from father which informed me that mother would not come to Rosville. He reminded me that I had been in Rosville over a year. "I am going home soon," I said to myself, putting away the letter. It was a summer day, bright and hot. Alice, busy all day, complained of fatigue and went to bed soon after tea. The windows were open and the house was perfumed with odors from the garden. At twilight I went out and walked under the elms, whose pendant boughs were motionless. I watched the stars as they came out one by one above the pale green ring of the horizon and glittered in the evening sky, which darkened slowly. I was coming up the gravel walk when I heard a step at the upper end of it which arrested me. I recognized it, and slipped behind a tree to wait till it should pass by me; but it ceased, and I saw Charles pulling off a twig of the tree, which brushed against his face. Presently he sprang round the tree, caught me, and held me fast.
"I am glad you are here, my darling. Do you smell the roses?"
"Yes; let me go."
"Not till you tell me one thing. Why do you stay in Rosville?"
The baby gave a loud cry in Alice's chamber which resounded through the garden.