“Because, dear, I have shuddered even to think of the thing, it left such a horrible impression on my mind.”
“Dear grannie,” murmured the other sympathetically. “Oh, if one tenth of the misery which you endured happens to me through the removal of my ring, I know I shall die, I could never stand any great strain; people were stronger then than they are now.
“I wonder, grannie, what you were like when you were my age,” resumed the speaker; “have you no old miniatures among your collections of relics?”
“No, my dear, but I have an old scrap-book which contains a drawing of myself, sketched during my honeymoon by my husband, who was quite a famous etcher before that accident to his arm. There is also, I think, an etching of Tallahassee, and one of the old plantation.”
Very naturally, nothing would content the youthful bride until she had seen the drawings, and her grandmamma left the piazza to fetch the album.
When left alone, an anxious expression crept over the former’s face, and the point of her tiny boot tapped the boarded floor, nervously and somewhat impatiently.
“I wonder if that was Tom whom I saw beckoning to me in the thicket, and if so, what trouble has he been getting into now?”
At that moment a low voice called her softly by name, and suppressing the scream of alarm which rose to her lips, she turned to find the person of whom she was thinking, her scapegrace brother Tom, half hidden in the shrubbery which separated the main building from some outhouses.
Before she could frame any greeting, a letter fluttered to her feet, and the alarming visitor disappeared as her grandmamma returned, album in hand.
All that the letter said, when surreptitiously opened, was, “I must meet you at the end of the peach walk at eight to-night; don’t fail to be there; my safety concerned.”