“Well, I wouldn’t keep you from going there, storm or no storm. You can go in the carriage. I’d just go wild to have that girl for my sister-in-law. The Legares stand at the very head of New York society. But there’s the dinner-bell.”
“Mercy! how the wind blows. This storm has come up very quickly—a regular north-easter,” said the brother, with a shiver, and there was a very anxious look on his face as he went to the dining-room.
His people always dined late, that they might have his company after the day’s business was over.
At the table Edward W—— ate very little. His soup was barely tasted, the fish passed entirely, the “old roast beef” always on that table just apologized to, and he would not wait for dessert at all.
“Why, brother, you said you were so hungry when you came in,” said Flotie, opening her great black eyes in wonder at his abstinence. “Has the thought of that little blonde divinity driven away all appetite?”
“What blonde divinity?” asked Anna, yet ignorant of his destination that evening.
“Why, that pretty Miss Legare whom we saw at the opera the other night. Her father is worth millions on millions, and they descended from a noble French family, I know, just by their looks and the name,” answered Flotie.
“Oh!”
And that was all Anna said just then.
But she kept on thinking, and when her brother kissed her and Flotie good-night, as he invariably did on going out, she said: