“Oh, nothing much,” she answered, recovering her composure, and pressing her hand upon her side, “nothing but an ugly pain, which is gone now. I have felt it often lately,” and her face looked as unruffled and innocent as if she really thought it was the truth she had uttered.
I knew she told a falsehood, but Mr. Delafield did not, and leading her to the summer-house, which was near, bade her sit down, while he made minute inquiries concerning the pain, asking how long since she first felt it, and saying he would speak to Dr. Matson the first time he came to Cedar Grove, adding that a blister, he presumed, would help it!
“Oh, mercy!” she exclaimed, again growing pale. “You make too serious a matter of it.”
But he did not think so—he was very tender of her, as a brother would be of his orphaned sister; and knowing that her mother had died of consumption, he watched narrowly for the first indications of that disease in her. Just then little Jessie came bounding down the walk, saying that “breakfast was ready,” and leading her by the hand, I returned to the house, followed by Mr. Delafield and Ada, the latter of whom made some remark concerning my gait, which she pronounced “wholly Yankee and countrified.”
“And graceful,” rejoined Mr. Delafield, at the same time telling her he did not like to hear one female speak disparagingly of another.
Ada bit her lip with vexation, and when she took her seat at the table, she was evidently not in the best of humors. At Mrs. Lansing’s invitation her brother remained to breakfast, and I could not perceive that he was any more polite to the beautiful lady in elegant French muslin on his right, than he was to the plain-looking girl in a shilling calico on his left. Indeed, if there was a difference, it was in favor of the latter, with whom he conversed the most, addressing her as if she had at least common sense, while towards Ada he always assumed the trifling, bantering manner which he seemed to think was suited to her capacity.
Breakfast being over, I started for my room, accidentally dropping upon the stairs a handkerchief, which had been given me by Anna, and which had her name “Anna Lee” marked in the corner. In honor of Ada’s return, there was no school that day, and as the morning advanced and the heat in my chamber grew oppressive, I went with my book to the sitting-room, and took a seat by an open window, where I soon became so absorbed in reading as not to observe Mrs. Lansing and Ada, who came out upon the piazza and sat down quite near me, but still in such a position that neither of us could see the other. After a time they were joined by Mr. Delafield, and then for a moment I thought of stealing quietly away, but thinking my remaining there could do no harm, I resumed my book and forgot my neighbors entirely, until my attention was roused by the sound of my own name.
It was Mrs. Lansing who spoke, and she asked, “What kind of folks are those relatives of Miss Lee?”
“Oh, about so so,” answered Ada, and Mrs. Lansing continued, “And she was then at school? I believe.”
“At school!” repeated Ada, apparently in much surprise. “Mercy, no! Why, she was a grown up woman, as much as twenty-two or twenty-three years old.”