“My dear Tom, you are mistaken. Mr. MacEveril did not come this morning; he only got here an hour ago—like two or three more of the young men.”
“Oh, did he not, Aunt Mary Ann?” replied Tom, turning his handsome, pleasant face upon her.
“Yes, and if you were not at the office I should like to know what you did with yourself all day, Dick,” severely cried Miss MacEveril, bending forward to regard her cousin.
“I went to see the pigeon-match,” said Dick, coolly.
“To see the pigeon-match!” she echoed. “How cruel of you! You had better not let papa know.”
“If anyone lets him know it will be yourself, Miss Mary. And suppose you hold your tongue now,” cried Dick, not very politely.
This little passage-at-arms over, we went on with tea. Afterwards we strolled out of doors and disposed of ourselves at will. Some of the Chandler girls took possession of me, and I went about with them.
When it was getting late, and they had talked me deaf, I began looking about for Tod, and found him on a bench within the Grove. A sheltered spot. Sitting there, you could look out, but people could not look in. Mary MacEveril and Georgiana Chandler were with him; Oliver Preen stood close by, leaning against the stump of a tree. I thought how sad his look was, and wondered what made it so.
Within view of us, but not within hearing, in a dark, narrow walk Tom Chandler and Emma Paul were pacing side by side, absorbed evidently in one another. The sun had set, the lovely colours in the sky were giving place to twilight. It was the hour when matter-of-fact prosaic influences change into romance; when, if there’s any sentiment within us it is safe to come out.
“It is the hour when from the boughs
The nightingale’s high note is heard;
It is the hour when lovers’ vows
Seem sweet in every whispered word,”