Rona looked at her wistfully, and heaved a sigh. "Very well, dearest," said she, affectionately, "if you think so." So saying, she crossed the room and went upstairs to get ready.
It was a lovely morning, and the pretty little church was very full. But it seemed that Rona could not fix her mind upon what she was doing. She sat all the time like one in a dream, furtively glancing behind her, over her shoulder, as though she expected to see something alarming.
During the sermon it was painful to watch her difficulty in remaining quiet. She was usually full of repose, but to-day she changed her position, fidgeted, looked up, looked down, looked around; until the irritation of Miss Rawson's nerves grew almost unbearable.
At last the service was over. They rose from their places, and moved slowly down the central space, between the chairs. Three parts of the way down, an elderly man, coarse and stout, but dressed like a gentleman, stood hat in hand, his eyes fixed upon them both, something that was not quite a smile, nor quite a sneer, lurking in his eyes and unpleasant mouth.
As they passed him, he spoke quietly, but quite audibly.
"Well, Veronica," he said, smoothly, "have you nothing to say to your Uncle Rankin?"
In that awful moment Miss Rawson was the more agitated of the two. It seemed that, now the blow had fallen, the strange tension and restlessness of the girl had passed away, and her spirit leaped up to wrestle with this realization of her vague forebodings. She gravely shook hands with her uncle, and said, in an undertone, "Let us wait to talk until we are outside."
They moved with the thinning stream of people to the porch, and out into the oppressive heat of a gray day that threatened thunder.
There Rona turned to Miss Rawson, and said, still very quietly, "This is my mother's uncle, Rankin Leigh."
Aunt Bee had had a moment in which to collect herself. She bowed to the disagreeable looking man who stood truculently there in the road, his hat slightly pushed back upon his head, his eyes full of an odious triumph, as thinking he had the whip hand of the situation.