Lady Edith was as eager and joyous as a child when they took a carriage at the station to drive to Verelands.
“Dear child, I know she will be so happy to see me again!” she exclaimed, excitedly; and her brother looked in surprise and delight at her charming, animated face, which was flushed to a soft, roseate color, while her dark-blue eyes sparkled with feeling.
“You look like a girl again, Edith,” he said, admiringly.
“Nonsense!” she laughed. Then she added, with a pensive glance: “Why, I am old enough to be Thea’s mother and her child’s grandmother. I wish I were!” and tears sprung to her gentle eyes.
“You will have to adopt them as such,” Lord Stuart said, lightly; but he put his arm around her, and soothed her tenderly as though she were a child, and presently their carriage was stopping at the white gates of beautiful Verelands.
“Just a few more minutes, and I shall see her. Oh, what happiness!” Lady Edith cried, with the eagerness of a child.
“If she should be out calling or driving, I do not see how you could bear the shock of disappointment, Edith,” her brother said, good-humoredly.
“Alan Arthur would be at home anyhow, so I should amuse myself with him till his pretty mamma returned,” she replied, gayly, as he handed her out of the carriage; and they entered the white gates, within which they were destined to meet such a terrible disappointment.
CHAPTER LXIV.
“There is nobody at home, sir, but Mrs. de Vere. She is ill, and will see no one,” said the tidy negro girl who answered the bell.