"Do you think I cannot read your looks? I will tell you one thing, Charles: if you could see what is going on in my heart, as well as I can see what is going on in yours, I should have no such looks to complain of. And now, for your pains, I will torment you for a week longer, the latter part of which you shall come and spend with me in Northumberland.--There! do not suppose I am going to insist upon your marrying me directly, for I do not intend any such thing; but I have engaged dear aunt Fleetwood and Maria, while you four gentlemen were down-stairs drinking too much wine, after the sottish custom of the land, and I asked Colonel Middleton just now, so you must come and be jealous."
"But Winkworth?" said Charles--"I do not like to leave him in his present state."
"He must come too," said the fair lady. "I will call and ask him to-morrow, so pray tell him that I never suffer myself to be contradicted by anybody."
"Can you not put it off for a week?" asked Charles. "I do not think Winkworth will be well enough to travel."
Lady Anne mused.
"No," she said, "I cannot, for I have determined to take Frank Middleton down there on Thursday next; and you know, Charles, it wouldn't do for him and me to go down and live together by ourselves till you and your friend were ready to come. Propriety--think of propriety!" and she looked up in his face with a gay and meaning laugh. "No, no; get your friend well as soon as you can. Maria and I and Lady Fleetwood will go down on Wednesday, Colonel Middleton will come down on Thursday, and you and Mr. Winkworth must join us afterwards. So now good-bye, for I am going home."
Charles saw her to her carriage, and then, without returning to his aunt's drawing-room, walked across to his own hotel; but during a great part of the night his thoughts were occupied with Henry Hayley and Colonel Middleton, and the same objects formed the subject of his dreams.
CHAPTER XX.
To retrace one's steps is always a difficult, and very often a most unpleasant task, as every one must have felt who has left his note-book at home and had to go back for it. Imagination, however--kind, quick, ready Imagination--with one bound skips over the intervening space, and plants us on the wished-for spot without tracking back the weary footprints of our advance. She shall lend us her wings for a moment, to take us back to the spot where we left our worthy friend Joshua Brown, the pedlar.
From the door of Henry Hayley's room he walked down-stairs, spoke for a moment with Farmer Graves, took what little breakfast he would accept, and then departed, bending his steps towards the same common which he had passed during the preceding evening. He followed the same track exactly, and he had his reasons for so doing; for he very much desired to obtain some little information in regard to those rough friends who had become too familiar with his pack and his companion's pocket-book.