“And what will you do?” Fanny asked, gazing in wonder and awe at the young girl, who answered: “I do not know; I have not thought. I guess God will take care of that.”
And God did take care of that, and inclined the Hetherton family to be very kind and tender towards her, and kept Arthur from the house until the Christmas decorations were completed and the Christmas festival was held. Many were the inquiries made for Lucy on Christmas Eve, and many thanks and wishes for her speedy restoration were sent to her by those whom she had so bountifully remembered. Thornton Hastings, too, who had come to town and was present at the church on Christmas Eve, asked for her with almost as much interest as Arthur, who bade Fanny tell her that he should call on her on the morrow after the morning service.
“Oh, I cannot see him here! I must tell him at the rectory in the very room where he asked me to be his wife,” Lucy said, when Fanny reported Arthur’s message. “I am able to ride there, and it will be fine sleighing to-morrow. See, the snow is falling now,” and pushing back the curtain Lucy looked drearily out upon the fast-whitening ground, sighing as she remembered the night when the first snow-flakes were falling, and she stood watching them with Arthur at her side.
Fanny did not oppose her cousin, and with a kiss upon the blue-veined forehead, she went to her own room and left her to think for the hundredth time what she should say to Arthur.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHRISTMAS DAY.
The worshippers at St. Mark’s on Christmas morning heard the music of the bells as the Hetherton sleigh dashed by, but none of them knew whither it was bound or dreamed of the scene which awaited the rector when after the services were over he started towards home. Lucy had kept to her resolution, and just as Mrs. Brown was looking at the clock to see if it was time to put her fowls to bake, she heard the hall door open softly, and almost dropped her dripping-pan in her surprise at the sight of Lucy Harcourt, who looked so mournfully at her as she said:
“I want to go to Arthur’s room,—the library, I mean.”
“Why, child, what is the matter? I heard you was sick, but did not s’spose ’twas anything very bad. You are paler than a ghost,” Mrs. Brown exclaimed, as she tried to unfasten Lucy’s hood and cloak and lead her to the fire.
But Lucy was not cold, and would rather go at once to Arthur’s room. So Mrs. Brown made no objection, though she wondered if the girl was crazy as she went back to her fowls and Christmas pudding, and left Lucy to find her way alone to Arthur’s study, which looked so like its owner, with his dressing-gown across the lounge just where he had thrown it, his slippers on the rug, and his arm-chair standing near the table, where he had sat when he asked Lucy to be his wife, and where she now sat down, panting heavily for breath and gazing drearily around with the look of a frightened bird when seeking for some avenue of escape from an appalling danger. There was no escape, and with a moan she laid her head upon the writing-table, and prayed that Arthur might come quickly while she had sense and strength to tell him. She heard his step at last, and rose up to meet him, smiling a little at his sudden start when he saw her there.