“And—and you seem to be glad; and—and it is beastly of you when you know how fond I——”
Here the lad gave way; and she laughed at him and made him sit by her, and told him he was talking nonsense.
“If I look ‘so sweet’ as you say, that marvelous effect is due, not to my being dying of consumption, but to the Garstone air, which is making another woman of me.”
“Then why do you always want to stop and rest? You never used to.”
“Because—because the cold weather is coming on, and that always tries me.”
“But it oughtn’t to; it ought to brace you up.”
“Here come the Mainwarings! Let us get through the hedge,” interrupted Annie.
And an undignified exit put a stop to the conversation. Annie told her secret to no one living.
That very day, when these two returned home just in time for dinner, they found that an unexpected guest had arrived. It was Colonel Richardson. Beckham was not in a hunting-country, but a journey of an hour and a half by train took the Braithwaites within an easy distance of the meets of a very good pack of fox-hounds; and it was at a hunt-breakfast that day that the three eldest Braithwaites had met him. Harry, delighted to see his idol again, had introduced him to his brothers, and Sir George had invited him to return with them to the Grange, to break the journey to Scotland, where the colonel was due. He scarcely recognized Annie, she was so much changed for the better. Lilian received him with an indifference which, to Annie’s observant eyes, seemed rather overdone.
That evening, after dinner, when the ladies went into the drawing-room, Annie went as usual straight to the piano, while Lilian lounged upon a low seat in the corner near the entrance to the conservatory; her favorite retriever came to rub his head against her hand, and Annie thought, as she looked from the dog to its mistress, that she had never seen such a lovely woman. For Lilian had taken the utmost pains with her dress that evening; her black gown, cut square at the neck, set off the fairness of her complexion. She habitually despised ornaments, and could afford to do so; but to-night a few sprays of white azalea and white heath and delicate maiden-hair fern relieved the somber dress, and a very small bunch of azalea and fern was fastened by a gold-headed pin in her chestnut hair. And Annie saw the girl’s face flush when they heard the dining-room door open and the gentlemen’s voices across the hall; but when they all entered the room, Colonel Richardson came, in a few minutes, not to that seat near the conservatory, but to the piano, and told Annie that Schubert was his favorite composer. For it was a song from the “Schwanengesang,” arranged for the piano, that she was playing.