“No,” she answered, “I wasn’t lonely. I was very busy, and I was thinking of you, and looking for you. And—yes, I am forced to admit that I was a little anxious.”
“Poor child! I had promised to be home at noon. What did you think, and what did you do when I failed to come?”
“I thought something had detained you a little, and that you would be home very soon; and—I took a cup of tea and bit of toast for lunch,” laughed Drusilla.
“And afterwards, when hour after hour passed, until our late dinner time came, what then?”
“Oh, I waited, expecting you every minute, until some hours past our dinner-time, and then—I ate my own dinner and had yours put away to be kept warm.”
“Wise little girl.”
“But I scarcely thought you would need the dinner. I fancied you were dining with some friend you had met in the city, and that that was keeping you.”
“Little witch! And then when it grew dark and late?”
“Oh, then I grew a little nervous about you, and had ever so many foolish imaginations—that robbers had attacked you on the dark road, or that the horse had thrown you, or some other fatality had overtaken you; and so I was troubled with anxiety. But I reasoned and fought against that anxiety. I said to myself how much more likely it was that you were spending the evening with some friend; and then I recollected that the Italian Opera was in Washington, and I thought it most probable that you had gone there.”
“Ah! well, and what next?”