He kissed the hand upon his lips, and whispered, through the fingers:
“Tell me first, was it true, he told me? Do you”——
He did not finish the sentence, for Annie understood him, and bending so near to him that no one else could hear, she said:
“Yes, Jimmie,—I do.”
He seemed satisfied, and something of his old manner came back to him when, later in the day, Annie tried to straighten the clothes about him, and wet and brushed his hair.
“Look like a hippopotamus, don’t I?” he asked, touching his thick-skinned face.
“Not half as much as you did,” Annie replied; and the first smile her face had worn for weeks glimmered around her lips, for she knew now the danger was past, and Jimmie Carleton would live.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
IN ROCKLAND.
The warm, bright November day was wearing to its close. The purple haze of the Indian summer lay around the hilltops, and the soft, golden sunlight fell softly upon the grass, and the few autumnal flowers which had escaped the recent storm. The grounds around the Mather mansion were looking almost as beautiful as in the early summer, for the grass, invigorated by the rain, was fresh and green again, and the brilliant foliage of the trees which dotted the lawn made up for the loss of the flowers. Even these last were not lacking indoors, for the hot-house had been robbed of its costliest flowers, which filled the whole house with perfume, and made Maude De Vere start with surprise when she first entered the parlors.