She had met him one afternoon as she walked with her aunt in the gardens at Vauxhall.
‘My dear Carrie, see there,’ Lady Mallow had said. ‘There is Mr. Philip Meadowes, the—I regret to say it—the natural son of Mr. Richard Meadowes of Fairmeadowes, the property which adjoins to mine at Wynford. For certain I thought it curious that he paid no attention to Sir James, but his infrequent visits to Fairmeadowes no doubt explained the circumstance, for on every hand I have accounts of the affability both of the father and the son. They are beloved in the neighbourhood.’
The good lady rattled on long after the subject of her discourse had passed by. She did not guess how much Phil was beloved in a neighbourhood very close to her at that moment. Carrie listened to her aunt’s talk with heightened colour and sparkling eyes. How different Philip had looked! how much older! He looked boyish no longer—and yet he was the same, her dearest Phil, who would come very soon to claim her now. . . . What would her father say that day? Carrie’s joy was checked at the thought.
For the last month or two of these two years of waiting Carrie could not be tender enough to her father. She was with him every moment of his spare time, and sat by him in the evening, and held his hand till he laughed and asked her the reason of all this sentiment. Carrie laughed also, but her eyes filled with tears; she knew the blow that impended over him.
At last one night she determined to speak. She sat down beside her father and laid her face against his shoulder.
‘Sir, I feel certain that ere long Philip Meadowes will come to claim your promise,’ she said.
She felt her father draw in his breath hard before he spoke.
‘I thought you had forgot Philip Meadowes,’ he said at length.
‘I—forgotten—oh, sir, so soon? What do you take me for?’ cried Carrie. She raised her face for a moment as she spoke.
‘Then you mean to have him?’