There was an unusual shadow on little Emily Murray's face too, that day, as she went home. She was thinking of Georgia. The eyes of affection are not easily blinded, and she saw that under all her proud, reserved exterior, her friend was unhappy.
"I know she dreads the coming of all those people from the city, Uncle Edward," she said that evening to Father Murray, as she sat busily sewing at the table.
"Poor child!" said the kind old clergyman. "I feared from the first this marriage would not contribute much to her happiness. Not that it is Mr. Wildair's fault; he means well, and really does all for the best; but your friend, Emily, is peculiar. She is morbidly proud and intensely sensitive, and has a dread amounting to horror of being ridiculed. People of her nature are rarely, if ever, perfectly happy in this world; they are self-torturers, and their happiness comes in flashes, to be succeeded by deeper gloom than before. Georgia always was in extremes; she was either wildly, madly, unreasonably joyful, or else wrapped in a dark, sullen gloom that nothing could alleviate."
The next three days Emily was not up at the Hall, but on the fourth afternoon she started to see Georgia. The train from the city had just reached Burnfield station, and two large sleighs, filled with ladies and gentlemen, were dashing up amid the jingling of bells and peals of silvery laughter toward Richmond House.
Emily paused and watched them until they disappeared up the avenue, and then, as she was about to turn away, she saw Mrs. Hamm, cloaked and hooded, advance toward her.
"Good-afternoon, Miss Murray," said the stately little dame, in a tone of lofty courtesy that would have become a duchess.
"Good-afternoon, Mrs. Hamm," said Emily, pleasantly; "I see you have visitors up at the house."
"Yes, friends of Mr. Wildair's, from New York—his mother, and cousins, and others—quite a large party. Excuse me, this is my way. Good-day, Miss Emily."
What inward feeling was it that made Emily turn and send such a look of pity up at the window of Georgia's room?
"Poor Georgia!" she said, as she turned away, feeling, she hardly knew why, a most uncomfortable sinking of her heart at the thought of her sensitive young friend amid all those unsympathizing strangers. "Poor Georgia! Poor Georgia!"