John, or Dr. Richards, did not care particularly to be caressed by ladies unless he could choose them, and releasing himself as soon as practicable from his lady mother’s embrace, he submitted himself a moment to his two elder sisters, and then, hastening to where Anna sat, wound his arms around her light figure, and lifting her as he would have lifted a little child, kissed her white lips and looked into her face with an expression which told that, however indifferent he might be to others, he was not so to Anna.
“You have not changed for the worse,” he said, replacing her in her chair and sitting down beside her.
“And you are vastly improved,” was Anna’s answer, as she smoothed playfully the Parisian mustache, her brother’s special pride.
Then commenced from mother and sisters a volley of questions. Had he been well? Did he like Paris? Was he glad to be home again? And why had he gone off without coming out to say good-bye?
This last was put by his mother, who continued, “I thought, perhaps, you were offended at my plain letter concerning that girl, and resented it by not coming, but of course you are glad now, and see that mother was right. What could you have done with a wife in Paris?”
“I should not have gone,” John answered, moodily, a shadow stealing over his face.
It was not good taste for Mrs. Richards thus early to introduce a topic on which John was really so sore, and for a moment an awkward silence ensued, broken at last by the mother again, who, feeling that all was not right, and anxious to know if there was yet aught to fear from a poor, unknown daughter-in-law, asked, hesitatingly,
“Have you seen her since your return?”
She is dead was the reply, and then anxious to change the conversation, the Doctor began talking to Anna until the supper bell rang, and his mother led the way to the dining room where a most inviting supper was prepared in honor of the Doctor’s return. How handsome he looked in his father’s place at the head of the table. How gracefully he did the honors, and how proud all were of him as he repeated little incidents of Parisian life, speaking of the Emperor and Eugenie as if they had been every day sights to him. In figure and form the fair Empress reminded him of Anna, he said, except that Anna was the prettier of the two—a compliment which Anna acknowledged with a blush and a trembling of her long eyelashes. It was a very pleasant family reunion, for John did his best to be agreeable, and by the time they returned to the parlor his mother had quite forgiven him the flagrant act of loving an unknown girl.
“Oh, John, please be careful where you tear that paper. There’s an advertisement I want to save,” Anna exclaimed, as she saw her brother tearing a strip from the Herald with which to light his cigar, but as she spoke, the smoke and flame curled around the narrow strip, and Dr. Richards had lighted his cigar with the name and address appended to the advertisement which had so interested Anna.