“I sha’n’t come down again,” she said in a low tone. “Tell them Poppet was not well, and I had to stay with her; indeed, I cannot come, Nellie.”
Nellie glanced at her impatiently; she did not understand the strange, moved look on her sister’s face—it had been unclouded and laughing an hour ago; how could she guess she had been holding hands with the dead all this little while?
Besides, her conscience reproached her about poor little Poppet, and it made her feel irritable.
“I never saw any one like you for moods, Meg,” she said crossly. “A minute ago you were laughing and talking to Alan Courtney, and now you’re looking like a funeral hearse; and I think it’s very rude not to come down and say good-night. They asked me to sing the ‘Venetian Boat Song’ too, and you know I can’t play my own accompaniment.”
“Dear Nell, another night,” Meg whispered; “and hush, you will disturb Poppet. Go down again yourself now, or Esther will be vexed. Wish [66] ]them good-night for me; I have to speak to Jo—Bunty.”
Nellie’s face still looked vexed. She had practised her somewhat difficult song, and was ambitious to sing it since they all pressed her so.
“I can see Alan thinks it strange of you vanishing like that,” she said grumblingly. “He told me to be sure to make you come down again.”
Then Meg blushed—a beautiful, warm, tender blush that crept right up to the little straying curls on her forehead. They had been talking about books, she and Alan, before she came upstairs; and in a sudden fit of petulance with herself she had said she was “a stupid, ignorant thing, and would not talk to him about books again, because she knew he was laughing at her for knowing so little.”
And oh! what was it his eyes had said when they flashed that one quick, eager look into hers? what was it that softly breathed “Meg” had meant?
Nellie had whispered in her ear the next second, “Poppet’s crying herself nearly into a fit for you; can you go to her for a minute?”