“It is I, Mr. Brander,” answered Olivia, in a very meek, small voice.
She opened the door and entered shyly, with a prim little speech upon her lips, something about “so many inquiries having been made for him that she had offered to come and learn how he was.” But she only got out a few words and stopped. He was still standing by the door, and she had not yet looked at him. When she modestly raised her eyes, she read in his face such feelings as put her pretty platitudes to flight.
“Oh!” she said, softly, and clasped her hands, while her lips quivered and her eyes filled. But she instantly recovered herself and became very stately and stiff.
“Come and sit down,” said he; and, closing the door, he took her hands in both his, and led her to a battered armchair, which stood beside the worn old sofa from which he had just risen.
Olivia allowed herself to be led to the chair, on which she sat down with some constraint. Mr. Brander took an ordinary cane-seated chair at the other side of the table. There was a silence of some moments. Then the girl spoke.
“I am glad you were not at the haymaking this afternoon, Mr. Brander. The sun was so hot, even up to the time I left, that it was quite as much as we could do to breathe, without the fatigue of making hay.”
She did not look at him while she spoke; but as he only said “Yes” in a very faint voice, she slowly turned her head and saw that he was swaying on the table, ashy white and breathing heavily. All her shyness and constraint broke down in a second. She started up, and running lightly round the table, put a strong supporting arm around him.
“Come to the sofa,” she said, gently. “You are not well enough to sit up.”
For answer he laid his head against her shoulder, and looked rapturously into her beautiful face.
“I don’t feel ill,” was all he dared to say.