So she sat by her window until she heard him coming up the walk, and then waited until the whispered interview on the piazza was at an end, and Maude was in her room. Then she passed noiselessly out into the hall, and on through a narrow corridor, until Jack’s chamber was reached.
“Come in!” was answered rather sternly to her timid knock, and by the tone of his voice, she knew that Jack guessed who his visitor was, and she trembled as she advanced toward him, and laid her hand on his arm.
He did not smile, nor allow his face to relax a muscle, even when she looked up at him in her most beseeching way, and began by calling him “dear Jack.” But he would soften after a time, she was sure. He never had withstood her long at a time, and so she mustered all her courage, and began:
“Dear Jack, I’ve had no chance to congratulate you on your engagement, and I came to do so now, and to tell you how glad I am. I would rather have Maude for my sister than any one I know. You have chosen well, my boy.”
“I am glad you think so,” Jack answered stiffly; and then there was a painful silence, which Georgie broke by saying:
“Jack, have you no word of congratulation for me in my new happiness?”
The tears were swimming in her great, bright eyes, and she seemed the very embodiment of innocence and goodness; but Jack looked away from her, straight down at some slippers which Annie had embroidered for him, and asked:
“Are you happy, Georgie?”
“Yes, oh, yes; so happy that I feel as if I never could be thankful enough to the good Father who has been so kind to me.”
“Pshaw!” and Jack spoke impatiently. “Don’t, for gracious sake, try to come your pious strains on me, for I tell you they won’t go down till you have done one thing. Have you told Roy?”