"I will come, as usual, this evening, my dear child," said he, with the appearance of great composure; "but I will not break in upon him now. Was his return expected?" he added carelessly, as he took up his hat; and as he spoke Rosalind thought that his eye glanced towards her.
"No indeed!" replied Fanny: "I never was more surprised. Did he say, Rosalind, what it was brought him home?"
"I asked him to state his reason for it," replied Miss Torrington, "and he told me he could assign nothing but whim."
Rosalind looked in the face of the vicar as she said this, and she perceived a slight, but to her perfectly perceptible, change in its expression. He was evidently relieved from some uneasy feeling or suspicion by what she had said.
"Go to your brother, my dear child; let me not detain you from so happy a meeting for a moment."
Fanny again prepared to leave the room; but as she did so, her eye chanced to rest upon her own figure reflected from a mirror above the chimney-piece. She raised her hand almost involuntarily to her hair.
"Will not Charles think me looking very strangely?" said she, turning towards Mr. Cartwright with a blushing cheek and very bashful eye.
He whispered something in her ear in reply, which heightened her blush, and induced her to answer with great earnestness, "Oh no!" and, without farther doubt or delay, she ran down stairs. Miss Torrington followed her, not thinking it necessary to take any leave of the vicar, who gently found his way down stairs, and out of the house, as he had found his way into it, without troubling any servant whatever.