Still she did not answer, but wept softly behind her hands.
“Drusa, my daughter, you are not displeased with me, are you? I would no more willingly displease you than I would the highest lady in the land,” he continued.
“Oh, no, no, no! You could not do so. Don’t mind me. I do not know why I weep. I don’t indeed. I am a fool, I think.”
“That’s certain,” said Mrs. Sterling, dryly, “and so is he. Young people are apt to be fools in their honeymoon, but time cures them.”
There was a very dry method in the madness of Mrs. Sterling.
The housekeeper took possession of her old rooms, but as they too had been re-papered, painted and furnished, she scarcely recognized them again.
Drusilla had the little chamber that had been given her by Mrs. Lyon, and was now renovated, as a spare room.
Alexander had his own superb suit of apartments.
Mr. Lyon called in the best medical science and skill to the aid of Mrs. Sterling. But the unanimous opinion of the faculty endorsed that of the country doctor, and there was little hope of the patient’s recovery.
When the month of December opened, Mr. Lyon wrote to his uncle and to his betrothed, inviting them to come as usual, and spend the Christmas holidays at his house in Richmond, and reminding them that the meeting would be one of a quiet family party, excluding all other visitors, and abstaining from all gayety, in respect to the memory of the departed.