"She begins early! It's a pity if I can't have my own husband to myself even before breakfast," Zoe muttered, stepping back into the dressing-room.
Her first impulse was to remain where she was; the second, to go down at once, and join them.
She hastened to do so, but, before she reached the foot of the stairway, the breakfast-bell rang; and, instead of going into the library, she passed on directly to the dining-room, and, as the other two entered a moment later, gave Miss Deane a cold "Good-morning," and Edward a half reproachful, half pleading look, which he, however, returned with one so kind and re-assuring that she immediately recovered her spirits, and was able to do the honors of the table with ease and grace.
Coming upon her in that room alone, an hour later, just as she had dismissed Aunt Dicey with her orders for the day, "Little wife," he said, bending down to give her the coveted caress, "I owe you an explanation."
"No, Ned, dear, I don't ask it of you: I know it is all right," she answered, flushing with happiness, and her eyes smiling up into his.
"Still, I think it best to explain," he said. "I had finished attending to the little matters I spoke of,—writing a note, and giving some directions to Uncle Ben,—and was on my way back to our apartments, when Miss Deane met me on the stairway, and asked if I would go into the library with her, and help her to look up a certain passage in one of Shakspeare's plays, which she wished to quote in a letter she was writing. She was anxious to have it perfectly correct, she said, and would be extremely obliged for my assistance in finding it."
"And you could not in politeness refuse. I know that, Ned, and please don't think me jealous."
"I know, dear, that you try not to be; and it shall be my care to avoid giving you the least occasion. And I do again earnestly assure you, you need have no fear that the first place in my heart will not always be yours."
"I don't fear it," she said; "and yet,—O Ned! it is misery to me to have to share your society with that woman, even for a day or two!"
"I don't know how I can help you out of it," he said, after a moment's consideration, "unless by shutting myself up alone,—to attend to correspondence or something,—and leaving you to entertain her by yourself. Shall I do that?"