And the young man read the ode to a Sky-lark.
“How joyous it is!” said Hope; “but I feel the sadness.”
“Yes, I often feel that in people as well as in poems,” replied Arthur, looking at her closely.
She colored a little—said that it was warm—and rose to go.
The cold black eyes of Miss Fanny Newt suddenly glittered upon them.
“Will you go home with us, Miss Wayne?”
“Thank you, I am just coming;” and Hope passed into the wood.
When Arthur Merlin was left alone he quietly lighted a cigar, opened his port-folio and spread it before him, then sharpened a pencil and began to sketch. But while he looked at the tree before him, and mechanically transferred it to the paper, he puffed and meditated.
He saw that Hope Wayne was constantly with other people, and yet he felt that she was a woman who would naturally like her own society. He also saw that there was no person then at Saratoga in whom she had such an interest that she would prefer him to her own society.
And yet she was always seeking the distraction of other people.