"And now a darker hour ascends."—Marmion.
week after the event recorded in the last chapter Archie went back to the city. Before he went, he had obtained a promise from Gipsy—who had grown strangely still and gentle since the death of Danvers—to become his wife immediately upon his return; but, with her usual eccentricity, she refused to allow him to make their engagement public.
"Time enough by and by," was still her answer; and Archie was forced to be content.
Gipsy was, for a while, sad and quiet, but both were foreign to her character; and, with the natural buoyancy of youth, she shook off her gloom, and soon once more her merry laugh made music through the old house.
Doctor Nicholas Wiseman sometimes made his appearance at Sunset Hall of late. Lizzie was suffering from a low fever; and as he was the only physician in St. Mark's, he was called in.
As he sat one day in the parlor at luncheon with the squire, Gipsy came tripping along with her usual elastic step, and touching her hat gallantly to the gentlemen, ran up to her own room. The squire's eyes followed her with a look of fond pride.
"Did you ever see such another charming little vixen?" he asked, turning to the doctor.
"Miss Gower's certainly an extraordinary young lady," said the doctor, dryly. "I have often been surprised, Squire Erliston, that you should treat your housekeeper's niece as one of your own family."
"She's not my housekeeper's niece," blurted out the squire; "she was——"