ABOUT half past eleven o'clock, when all was quiet in the house, Delia and Emily slipped on their frocks and cloaks, and taking a pitcher, to serve as an excuse if they happened to be caught, they stole quietly down stairs, and out at the school-room door into the garden. The moon was full, and shone with extraordinary brilliancy.
Not a sound was to be heard except the babble of the brook, and the distant barking of a dog; not a mouse seemed to stir in all the long range of buildings belonging to the Seminary, yet Emily felt strangely timid, as setting her pitcher on the well, she walked with Delia down one of the long alleys. She could not help peeping uneasily into every shadowy nook by the side of the path. The evergreen shrubs took strange and suspicious shapes; there were unaccountable rustlings in the hedges, and their footsteps echoed so strangely upon the flags that she could not help glancing behind her more than once, under the impression that they were followed by something.
Delia did not seem inclined for conversation, so that Emily had full leisure to work herself up to the highest state of excitement, and she nearly screamed aloud when the tall cloaked figure of a man rose abruptly from behind the group of arbor vitæ bushes, which shaded a rustic garden seat near the end of the long alley.
Delia grasped her arm hard.
"Hush, you little fool! Don't you see that it is Mr. Hugo?"
"Apparently Miss Emily is timid," remarked Mr. Hugo, seeming by no means pleased at seeing her. "I think, Delia, you would have been much wiser to have left her behind. She has clearly no taste for adventure."
"I did not wish to come without a companion," replied Delia. "Emily is in my confidence, and I have no reason to distrust her."
Mr. Hugo did not seem quite satisfied, and murmured something which was lost in his overhanging moustache. He then gave his arm to Delia, and they walked away together, leaving Emily struck dumb with consternation and shame.
To what a transaction had she made herself a party? It was clearly no accidental meeting. Delia had contrived the whole affair before hand, and it was doubtless her failure to meet her engagement of the evening before, which had put Mr. Hugo so out of temper in the morning. If she had guessed at the object of this stolen expedition, she thought she would have refused, at all hazards, to have any participation in the matter. And yet, what good would that have done? Delia would have come alone, which would have been much worse, and she might have precipitated her own disgrace.
She looked anxiously after the promenaders, and felt much relieved to see that they had reached the limit of the walk and turned back, for at first she had been in dread of an actual elopement.