He was right in going to Mrs. Wyndham’s, for she and her husband were his oldest friends, and he understood well enough what true hearts and what honest loyalty lie sometimes concealed in the bosoms of those brisk, peculiar people, who seem unable to speak seriously for long about the most serious subjects, and whose quaint turns of language seem often so unfit to express any deep feeling. But while he talked with his hosts his own thoughts strayed again and again to Joe, and he wondered what kind of woman she really was. He intended to visit her the next day.
The next day came, however, and yet John did not turn his steps up the hill towards Miss Schenectady’s house. It was a cloudless morning after the heavy storm, and the great drifts of snow flashed like heaps of diamonds in the sun. All the air was clear and cold, and the red brick pavements were spotted here and there with white patches left from the shovels of the Irishmen. Sleighs of all sizes were ploughing their way hither and thither, breaking out a track in the heavy mass that encumbered the streets. Every one was wrapped in furs, and every one’s face was red with the smarting cold.
Joe stayed at home until mid-day, when she went to a luncheon-party of young girls. As usual, they had been sewing for the poor, but Joe thought that she was not depriving the poor people of any very material assistance by staying away from the more industrious part of the entertainment. The sewing they all did together in a morning did not produce results whereby even the very smallest baby could have been clothed, and the part effected by each separate damsel in this whole was consequently somewhat insignificant. Joe would have stayed at home outright had the weather not been so magnificent, and possibly she thought that she might meet John Harrington on her way to the house of her friend in Dartmouth Street.
Fate, however, was against her, for she had not walked thirty yards down the hill before she was overtaken by Pocock Vancouver. He had been standing in one of the semi-circular bay windows of the Somerset Club, and seeing Joe coming down the steep incline, had hurriedly taken his coat and hat and gone out in pursuit of her. Had he suspected in the least how Joe felt toward him, he would have fled to the end of the world rather than meet her.
“Good morning, Miss Thorn,” he said, walking rapidly by her side and taking off his hat, “how very early you are to-day.”
“It is not early,” said Joe, looking at him coldly, “it is nearly one o’clock.”
“It would be called early for most people,” said Vancouver; “for Mrs. Wyndham, for instance.”
“I am not Mrs. Wyndham,” said Joe.
“I am going to see Harrington,” remarked Vancouver, who perceived that Joe was not in a good humor. “I am afraid he must be dreadfully cut up about this business.”
“So you are going to condole with him? I do not believe he is in the least disturbed. He has far too much sense.”