Alice was not in the yard—nor in the parlor—nor in the house. He knew it by that indefinable feeling which we experience when the one we love the best is absent.
“She had gone to walk by the river,” Miss Elinor said, when questioned, asking him in the same breath why he didn’t come home to dinner.
“I was not hungry,” he replied. “The prospect of losing Alice has taken my appetite away. Do you think she would stay with us, if I were to adopt her as my daughter?”
Miss Elinor didn’t think anything. She had not quite forgiven his unjust remark in the morning, and failing to obtain satisfaction from her, he started in quest of Alice, who, he was sure, would listen favorably to his plan of adoption. The tree where she and her father sat on that afternoon when she had come so near to death, was her favorite resort, and here he now found her, thinking of the coming time when she would be gone. It had cost her a struggle to decide the matter, but it was best, she thought; she could not always be dependent, and that very night she would answer “Yes.” But she wondered why she should feel so sad, or why the thought of leaving Mr. Howland should make her pain harder to bear.
“I shall miss both him and his sister so much,” she unconsciously said aloud, “I shall miss them both, but him the most.”
“Why then do you go?” came to her startled ear, and Richard Howland stood before her.
Springing to her feet she blushed and stammered out something about the watch-dog Ponto, whom she should miss. But it would not do. Mr. Howland was not to be deceived, and in her telltale face he knew the watch-dog Ponto meant himself.
“Alice,” said he, “sit down with me upon the bank, and tell me why you wish to leave us.”
Alice obeyed, but neither of them spoke until Mr. Howland, growing suddenly very bold, wound his arm around her waist, and drew her to his side. It was the first time in his life he had ever found himself in a position like this, and though it was very novel—very strange—he liked it. He forgot, too, all about the adoption, and bending low, so that in case of an emergency his lips could touch her cheek, he whispered:
“Alice—”