A mutual clasp of hands had sealed the compact, and that was the nearest to a love-making of anything which had passed between them, if we except the time when he had said good-by, and wiped away the tear which came unbidden to her eye as she told him how lonely she should be without him.
Hers was a nature as transparent as glass, and the young man, who for days had paced the ship’s deck so moodily, was fighting back the thoughts which whispered that in his intercourse with her he had not been all guileless, and that if in her girlish heart there was feeling for him stronger than that of friendship, he had helped to give it life.
Time and absence and Anna Ruthven had obliterated all such thoughts till now, when Lucy herself had brought them back again with her winsome ways, and her evident intention to begin just where they had left off.
“Let Anna tell me yes, and I will at once proclaim our engagement, which will relieve me from all embarrassments in that quarter,” the clergymen was thinking, just as his housekeeper came up, bringing him two notes, one in a strange handwriting, and the other in the graceful running hand which he recognized as Lucy Harcourt’s.
This he opened first, reading as follows:
“Prospect Hill, June —.”
“Mr. Leighton.—Dear Sir:—Cousin Fanny is to have a picnic down in the west woods to-morrow afternoon, and she requests the pleasure of your presence. Mrs. Meredith and Miss Ruthven are to be invited. Do come.
“Yours truly,
“Lucy.”
Yes, he would go, and if Anna’s answer did not come before, he would ask her for it. There would be plenty of opportunities down in those deep woods. On the whole, it would be pleasanter to hear the words from her own lips, and see the blushes on her cheeks when he tried to look into her eyes.