Her cold hand pulled back the heavy fastening of [213] ]the door when light footsteps fell on the verandah. She stood there in silence. But oh! such a little woebegone, dripping wet figure was there, with no wrap on at all, and only a bit of soaking lace on her head!
“Oh, Meg!” she said, and sprang into her sister’s arms with a hysterical sob of relief. “Oh, Meg, Meg, Meg! oh, my darling old Meg!”
What could Meg do?
Be angry when the wilful, beautiful creature was sobbing so pitifully?
Shake her aside and speak coldly when she was clinging to her with such a passion of love and relief? She kissed the face, wet with rain and tears.
“Come and get your wet things off, dear,” she said; “you should have driven up to the door, the drive’s so long.”
“I was afraid it would wake every one,” was Nellie’s answer, broken in three places.
Even when Meg had taken off, with her own hands, the poor spoiled white dress, and wet white gloves, and little muddy shoes; when she had made up a crackling fire of wood in the bedroom open fireplace, and brought her own cosy red dressing-gown and a white shawl for array, Nellie still wept heartbrokenly.
She was overwrought with the excitement of her [214] ]escape, the evening, and her return. And now Meg’s tenderness and utter absence of reproach broke her down altogether.
She put her head on the arm of the easy chair, and all her body shook with sobs.