“I knew you by the little red wing on your brown hat,” the somebody said, and Jack was sitting beside her.
He had a few hours off, he explained, and had come to meet her, knowing that the train stopped for water at this station, where he had waited during what seemed a little eternity.
“I knew you’d be hungry and I foraged round till I found a sandwich, a fried cake and some apples,” he continued, putting a paper parcel in her lap and getting possession of one of her hands.
She was not cold any more, or very hungry either, although she managed to make way with a sandwich and part of a fried cake whose age she could not well guess.
Jack was with her. He had come to meet her. His face was close to hers,—his arm was around her notwithstanding that she told him people were looking on, just as she had told him on their journey up.
“Let them look,” he said, glancing around. “There’s nobody behind us but an old man, and two old women, and a young one who would like to be in your place.”
Then he asked her about her stay in Washington and made some inquiries about Fanny as naturally as if she had been the most ordinary acquaintance. It was eight o’clock when they reached Richmond and Jack took Annie for the night to a friend of his. The next afternoon he accompanied her to Lovering, where Phyllis was ready for her. Jack had telegraphed that Annie was coming, and the old negress stood in the door, a new turban on her head, and her face shining as she welcomed her mistress home.
“Oh, it is so good to be here,” Annie said, as she let Phyllis remove her cloak and hat and then sank into the easy chair before the fire.
The round table was brought out again for supper with the best silver and china, and Phyllis waited and repeated all the gossip of the town, while Annie listened with more interest than she had felt for anything since she left home. Lovering was the place to live in and Fanny was welcome to her grandeur and the society of which she thought so much. By and by Jack came in and then it was heaven with him beside her, talking of their future with almost as much enthusiasm as he had once talked to her of that to-morrow which had never dawned for him. He was going north soon on a tour which might be extended into three or four months. This was to be the last, for when he returned his place was to be filled by another man and he was to become partner in the firm and open a branch of the business in Lovering.
“Then we shall be married. There is no reason why we should wait any longer,” he said, kissing the face resting upon his shoulder as he talked. “I thought I was sure to sell the house on The Plateau, but the man has changed his mind. Someone else, however, will want it,” he said.