“This one is boyish, Alva, because the sunny hair lies in soft loose rings of short hair all over the pretty head, and the roguish smile, and the dimples, the sea-shell coloring, the marvelous eyes so brightly blue, so innocent—arch—oh, I can not describe them!—go see for yourself.”
“I will; and you may expect me to bring her home with me.”
She hurried out, ordered the carriage, and within an hour was on her way to the store.
Mrs. Beresford turned back with a sigh to her task, and finished the cruel letter that was to carry such pain to her son across the sea.
When the bitter task was over she threw herself upon a low divan and wept bitterly a long, long while, almost frightened at what she had done.
She feared that she could not mold her son’s will to compliance by harshness as easily as she had done that of his timid sister.
“But he will not give up everything—he could not be so rash—for the sake of a fair-faced girl,” she told herself, with faint flickering hope.
Several hours later Alva entered the room, still in her rich carriage-dress, her face pale and grave.
“Oh, mamma, I have had a great shock,” she sighed.
“You did not find Cupid?”