“Your absence always seems long to me, dear wife, however short it may really be,” he answered earnestly. And he spoke the truth; for notwithstanding his admiration of Rosa, and the invidious comparison he had just drawn between her and Sybil, in his heart of hearts he still loved his wife truly.
She threw off her bonnet and shawl, and sat down beside him and began to rattle away like a happy girl, telling him all the little incidents of her morning’s drive—whom she had seen, what she had purchased, and how excited everybody was on the subject of her approaching fancy ball.
“The first one ever given in this neighborhood, you know. Lyon,” she added.
And having told him all the news, she snatched up her bonnet and shawl and ran up-stairs to her own room, where she found her thin housekeeper engaged in sorting out laces and snivelling.
“Why, what’s the matter now, Miss Tabby?” cheerfully inquired Sybil.
“Well, then, to tell you the truth, ma’am, I am dreadfully exercised into my own mind,” answered Miss Winterose, wiping a tear from the tip of her nose.
“What about, now?” gayly demanded Sybil, who felt not the slightest degree of alarm on account of Miss Tabby, knowing that lady to be a constitutional and habitual whimperer.
“Then, it’s all along of the wickedness and artfulness and deceitfulness of this here world.”
“Well, never mind, Miss Tabby; you’ll not have to answer for it all. But what particular instance of wickedness frets your soul now?” laughed Sybil.
“Why, now, there’s where it is! I don’t know whether I ought to tell, or whether I ought’n to; nor whether, if I was to tell, I would be looked upon into the light of a mischief-maker, or into the light of a true friend!” whimpered Miss Winterose.