“Of whom?”
“Her face, I mean,” he said, still dreaming.
“So little can be seen of it,” resumed Mrs. Carlyle. “Of whom does she put you in mind?”
“I don’t know. Nobody in particular,” returned he, rousing himself. “Let us have tea in, Barbara.”
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE YEARNING OF A BREAKING HEART.
At her bedroom door, the next morning, stood Lady Isabel, listening whether the coast was clear ere she descended to the gray parlor, for she had a shrinking dread of encountering Mr. Carlyle. When he was glancing narrowly at her face the previous evening she had felt the gaze, and it impressed upon her the dread of his recognition. Not only that; he was the husband of another; therefore it was not expedient that she should see too much of him, for he was far dearer to her than he had ever been.
Almost at the same moment there burst out of a remote room—the nursery—an upright, fair, noble boy, of some five years old, who began careering along on the corridor, astride upon a hearth-broom. She did not need to be told it was her boy, Archibald; his likeness to Mr. Carlyle would have proclaimed it, even if her heart had not. In an impulse of unrestrainable tenderness, she seized the child, as he was galloping past her, and carried him into her room, broom and all.
“You must let me make acquaintance with you,” she said to him by way of excuse. “I love little boys.”