‘Yes. She told me not to leave the library till she came for me.’
‘Then I must get out of the way.’
‘Why so, Miss Clara?’ I asked.
‘I don’t mean her to know I am here. If you tell, I shall think you the meanest—’
‘Don’t trouble yourself to find your punishment before you’ve found your crime,’ I said, thinking of my own processes of invention. What a little prig I must have been!
‘Very well, I will trust you,’ she returned, holding out her hand.—‘I didn’t give it you to keep, though,’ she added, finding that, with more of country manners than tenderness, I fear, I retained it in my boyish grasp.
I felt awkward at once, and let it go.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Now, when do you expect Mrs. Wilson?’
‘I don’t know at all. She said she would fetch me for dinner. There she comes, I do believe.’
Clara turned her head like a startled forest creature that wants to listen, but does not know in what direction, and moved her feet as if she were about to fly.