We all sat with trembling hands and beating hearts as the hour approached at which we knew the experiment was to be made.
Annie had been carried down-stairs, and laid upon a lounge in the western bay-window of the library. The lounge was covered with dark green damask. Old Cæsar had so implored to be allowed to carry her down, that Annie had insisted that he should be gratified; and she went down as she had so often done in her childhood, with her soft white face lying close to his shining black one.
As he put her down, in her rose-colored wrapper, on the dark green damask, he knelt before her and burst out in spite of himself, into a sort of wild chant of thanksgiving; but as we entered the door he sprang up ashamed, and turning to Aunt Ann, said: "Beg pardon, missis, but this rose yere was too much pink rose for old Cæsar!"
It was "too much pink rose" for any human eyes to see unmoved. We all cried: and Annie herself shed a few tears, but finally helped us all by saying gayly,--
"You'll make me ill again if you all go on like this. I hate people that cry."
No stranger's eye would have detected the thousandth part of a second's pause which George Ware's feet made on the threshold of that room when his eyes first saw Annie. Before the second had ended he was simply the eager, glad, affectionate cousin, and had taken calmly and lovingly the child's kiss which Annie gave him as she had given it every day of her life.
We could not speak. My uncle tried to read his newspaper; my aunt's hands shook in their pretense of sewing; I threw myself on the floor at the foot of Annie's lounge and hid my face in its cushions.
But George Ware's brave voice went steadily on. Annie's sweet glad tones, weak and low, but still sweeter than any other tones I ever heard, chimed in and out like fairy bells from upper air. More than an hour passed. I do not know one word that we said.
Then George rose, saying: "I must not tire you, little Annie, so I am going now."
"Will you come, again to-morrow?" she asked as simply as a little child.