Until he was hidden by the trees she watched him breathlessly, then, kneeling in the path, she laid her cheek upon the long grass he had trodden underfoot. “O my love, my love,” she whispered to the ground.
Miss Lydia called her from the house, and she went to her with some loose roses in her muslin apron. “Did you call me, Aunt Lydia?” she asked, lifting her radiant eyes to the old lady's face. “I haven't gathered very many leaves.”
“I wanted you to pot some white violets for me, dear,” answered Miss Lydia, from the back steps. “My winter garden is almost full, but there's a spot where I can put a few violets. Poor Mr. Bill asked for a geranium for his window, so I let him take one.”
“Oh, let me pot them for you,” begged Betty, eager to be of service. “Send Petunia for the trowel, and I'll choose you a lovely plant. It's too bad to see all the dear verbenas bitten by the frost.” She tossed a rose into Miss Lydia's hands, and went back gladly into the garden.
A fortnight after this the Major came over and besought her to return with him for a week at Chericoke. Mrs. Lightfoot had taken to her bed, he said sadly, and the whole place was rapidly falling to rack and ruin. “We need your hands to put it straight again,” he added, “and Molly told me on no account to come back without you. I am at your mercy, my dear.”
“Why, I should love to go,” replied Betty, with the thought of Dan at her heart. “I'll be ready in a minute,” and she ran upstairs to find her mother, and to pack her things.
The Major waited for her standing; and when she came down, followed by Petunia with her clothes, he helped her, with elaborate courtesy, into the old coach before the portico.
“It takes me back to my wedding day, Betty,” he said, as he stepped in after her and slammed the door. “It isn't often that I carry off a pretty girl so easily.”
“Now I know that you didn't carry off Mrs. Lightfoot easily,” returned Betty, laughing from sheer lightness of spirits. “She has told me the whole story, sir, from the evening that she wore the peach-blow brocade, that made you fall in love with her on the spot, to the day that she almost broke down at the altar. You had a narrow escape from bachelorship, sir, so you needn't boast.”
The Major chuckled in his corner. “I don't doubt that Molly told you so,” he replied, “but, between you and me, I don't believe it ever occurred to her until forty years afterwards. She got it out of one of those silly romances she reads in bed—and, take my word for it, you'll find it somewhere in the pages of her Mrs. Radcliffe, or her Miss Burney. Molly's a sensible woman, my child,—I'm the last man to deny it—but she always did read trash. You won't believe me, I dare say, but she actually tried to faint when I kissed her in the carriage after her wedding—and, bless my soul, I came to find that she had 'Evelina' tucked away under her cape.”