"Let us both go," said old Hugh.
They sallied forth anxiously into the brilliant moonlight that lay in silvery brightness all over the sweet, southern landscape—old Hugh, bareheaded, in his tattered dressing-gown, old Dinah in her short night-dress, too ridiculous a figure for anyone to contemplate without inward mirth.
It so happened that Elinor, whom the hard exigencies of poverty compelled to be her own dressmaker, had sat up late that night to complete some alterations in a dress in which she had intended to array her fair self for the morrow.
Having stitched on the last bit of lace, she went to the window and leaned out to cool her heated brow.
"My head aches, and I am almost melted with sewing by that hot lamp," she said to herself, fretfully. "How I hate this poverty that grinds one down so! When once I am married to Bertram Chesleigh I will never touch a needle again! I will order all my dresses of Worth, of Paris. And I will marry Bertram Chesleigh! I swear it; and woe be to anyone that tries to prevent me!"
Her dark eyes flashed luridly a moment, and her white hand was angrily clenched.
She was thinking of Clare, who had persisted in rivaling her with Mr. Chesleigh.
At that moment the subdued murmur of voices floated up to her window from the lawn.
She glanced down quickly, and saw old Dinah and her master crossing the lawn, their grotesque shadows flying long and dark before them in the brilliant moonlight.
Quick as thought Elinor was out of her seat, and gliding softly through the door in quest of her father.