Charley, as host pro tempore, got his hat; and Lynn followed them into the street, with, "I hope I don't intrude!" The tempest was near at hand; the gust that buffeted them at the corners made them stagger. Lynn forced Ida to take his arm also, and in this style they breasted the storm, gaily. Ida looked out after them, before she closed the door. They hurried along, arm in arm, their merry voices borne back to her by the wind, after the darkness swallowed up their forms.
The snow fell steadily all the next day, and the next.
Josephine was "blue;" her name for ill-humor—"bad weather always made her blue," Mr. Read had a twinge of the rheumatism, and was amiable accordingly. Ida wrote a long letter to Carry; read Charley's last budget of books; and watched the snow-flakes; enjoying the perfect quiet, and freedom from interruption. Upon each evening, she sat by her window, until she could not distinguish the boundary between the leaden sky and the white earth; and the snow, she had been brushing off all day, banked up against the glass. "Heigho! we dreamers have some pleasures more sensible people know nothing about;" said she, as the tea-bell sounded the second night. "It will seem so dark and dreary below after the society that has cheered my sanctum!"
The ice was breaking up below, in a hail-storm, which had all the sharpness of a conjugal "difference," without the stinging politeness genteel people throw into their wrangles. Ida listened and sickened and sighed. A pealing ring checked the disputants. Ida's heart fluttered, and Josephine looked up anxiously at the footman's entrance.
"Mr. Dana, to see Miss Ross."
"Of course then, I shall not go out;" said Josephine, haughtily.
Ida ran into the drawing-room. "Oh! I am so glad to see you!"—but his look stopped her short. "You have bad news! Carry!" she articulated, sinking into a chair.
"No: Carry and Jenny are well; but I am come for you. Our poor friend Lynn, is very ill."
"Ill!" said she, incredulously.