“No,” she answered; “not to-night.”
He came quite close to her.
“If you are not too greatly fatigued,” he said, “it would give me happiness to take you with me on my errand to your mother’s house. I must carry there my little birthday gift to your sister,” smiling again.
An expression of embarrassment showed itself upon her face.
“Oh,” she exclaimed, “to think that I had forgotten it! She will feel as if I did not care for her at all.”
She seemed for the moment quite unhappy.
“Let me see what you have chosen.”
He drew from his pocket a case and opened it.
“Oh,” she cried, “how pretty and how suitable for a girl!”
They were the prettiest, most airy set of pearls imaginable.