"Go into the back room, Susan," said the city girl. "You will not know how to receive her. I must do it."
Instantly Susan glided through the back door, and shut it, and Josephine Harris was alone in her singular position. At the same moment Miss Crawford tapped at the closed front door, and Josephine at once opened it to admit her.
Mary Crawford had been a charmingly-pretty country-girl—that Joe Harris saw at a glance, the moment her eye took in the whole contour; and she did not for a moment wonder that Richard should have been fond of her or that his cousin should have used all honorable means to supplant him. More of what she had been than what she was, the observer saw. No change, except age, could take away the charm from the rich chestnut auburn (is there not such a color?) of her hair; and her face could never be other than a pleasant and a good one. But the hazel eyes looked as if they had been more accustomed to filling with tears than any one knew besides the owner; the handsomely rounded cheeks looked almost as sallow as they might have done from long sickness; the full, girlish mouth had a pinched and pained expression; and though she was dressed richly and with excellent taste, for a mere call in the country, there was something about her small figure which showed that it had once been fuller and rounder, and that she had fallen into lassitude and comparative lifelessness.
"I had a note from Miss Halstead, saying that her mother was ill," said Miss Crawford, recognizing a stranger's face as the door was opened.
"Yes," said Josephine. "Miss Mary Crawford, I presume? Pray, come in."
"Where is Mrs. Halstead?" asked the visitor, perhaps a little surprised that she should not at least have been received by one of the family.
"Pray walk into this room a moment and lay off your bonnet," said Josephine, opening the door into the cool, shaded parlor which adjoined the sitting-room, drawing her in and shutting the door. Perhaps Miss Crawford saw something strange, too, in this or in the young girl's manner, for her eyes ranged around the room and then alighted upon her companion, with a little wonder expressed in them. Josephine Harris saw and marked the expression; and she was too much excited, herself, not to satisfy that wonder very quickly.
"Pray sit down, Miss Crawford," she said, drawing a large cushioned rocker near one of the windows.
"But Mrs. Halstead?" again asked the other. "Is she not very sick?"
"I have never had the pleasure of seeing you before this moment, Miss Crawford," said Josephine, her voice much thicker and huskier than she had ever before known it to be—"but I am going to ask you to do me a very great favor?"