"What do you find her doing mostly?" he asked, after awhile.
"Sitting by the window, looking at the sea," answered his mother—"always that—with a face the color of snow."
The gloom on the young man's face deepened. What if he should prove himself a prophet? What if this spirited, half-tamed thing should go melancholy mad?
"I will go to her at once!" he exclaimed, starting up. "If she goes into a passion at sight of me, it will do her good. Anything is better than this death in life."
He held out his hand for the key of the room upstairs. His mother handed it to him, and he strode out at once; and then Mrs. Oleander turned her regards upon the new nurse.
Strangers were "sight for sair een" in that ghostly, deserted farmhouse. But the new nurse never looked at her; she sat with those impenetrable green glasses fixed steadfastly on the blazing fire.
CHAPTER XIX.
MISTRESS SUSAN SHARPE.
Dr. Oleander was by no means a coward, yet it is safe to say his heart was bumping against his ribs, with a sensation that was near akin to fear, as he ascended the stairs. He was really infatuatedly in love with his fair-haired little enchantress, else he never had taken his late desperate step to win her; and now, having her completely in his power, it was rather hard to be threatened with her loss by melancholy madness.