It is a bright laughing young face, fair and unbearded, as different in form, color, and expression from the face of her present lover as it possibly can be. The difference seems to strike the girl with painful reality, for tears fall from her downcast eye and drop upon the smiling features.
"Oh, Ted, Ted, did you mean anything on that day when you were rushing away? It was all so quick, so hurried, when the order came for you to rejoin, that I had not time to think, to understand. Did you mean anything in that hot farewell whisper, 'Good-by, good-by, little woman; we're as poor as a pair of church-mice now, but, should I come back for you one day with a lac of rupees, you'll be ready for me, won't you, Addie darling?' That was three years ago, Ted, three years ago—and never a word from you since! I'm a goose to think of you now—I know I am; something tells me you've whispered the same to half a score of girls since; but, Teddy, if you did mean anything, come back for me now, before it's too late, before it's too late!"
"Addie, Addie, dinner is up, and there's a batter-pudding! Come down quick!"
"Coming!" she shouts; and then, carefully wiping the precious cardboard, she opens the well-thumbed family album. "I needn't destroy you, poor Ted; but you must leave my old desk now, and spend the rest of your days with the family"—placing him opposite to a simpering crinolined relative leaning against a pillar, with a basket of flowers in her hand. "Good-by, good-by, dear boy; I've watered your grave for the last time! And now for batter-pudding and a breaking heart!" she adds, with a light, half-contemptuous, half-wistful laugh, as she runs down-stairs.
The next morning, when Miss Lefroy appears at breakfast, she finds the parlor heavy with the breath of roses; eagerly she inhales their delightful fragrance.
"Aren't they lovely?" cries Lottie. "Did you ever see such a basketful? They are all for you, Addie, with 'T. A.'s compliments.' And look at the dishes of cherries and strawberries! Bob has been at them already—has polished off a couple of pounds. If you don't be quick, you'll not have any left. Fall to, Addie, fall to!"
But Addie turns away her head, and declares that she does not care for fruit so early in the day; and presently she even finds fault with the flowers—they are too much for the small close room—they give her a headache. She goes forth to the clover field opening out from the yard, and stretches herself at full length on the fresh sward to while away the long morning hours, her idle mind no longer troubled by the irregularities of French grammar, or the habits and manners of ancient Babylonia.
"Addie, Mr. Armstrong is in the parlor with Aunt Jo. Will you go in to him, or are we to bring him out here?"