"Oh, nothing," said easy Frank. "Daisy's gone back to The Mount, and I am here as usual. As soon as I can make a home for her, I shall take her away."
"Make a home where?"
"In some place where there's a likelihood of a good practice. London, I dare say."
"But how are you to live? A good practice does not spring up in a night, like a mushroom."
"That's arranged," replied Frank, as perfectly confident himself that it was arranged as that Edina was sitting in the low chair, and he was finally settling himself into his coat. "My plans are all laid, Edina, and Uncle Hugh knows what they are. It was in pursuance of them that I went over to Spring Lawn. I will tell you all about it to-morrow: there's no time to do so now."
"Papa does not know of what took place this morning?"
"No. No one knows of that. We don't want it known, if we can help it, until the time comes when all the world may know."
"Meaning until you have gained the home, Frank?"
"Meaning until I and Daisy enter upon it," said sanguine Frank.
Edina's hand—her elbow resting on her knee—was raised to support her head: her fingers played absently with her soft brown hair: her dark thoughtful eyes, gazing before her, seemed to see nothing. Whether it arose from the fact that in her early days, when Dr. Raynor's means were narrow, she had become practically acquainted with some dark phases of existence, or whether it was the blight that had been cast on her heart in its sweet spring-time, certain it was, that Edina Raynor was no longer of a sanguine nature. Where Frank saw only sunshine in prospective, she saw shadow. And a great deal of it.