"Here's Jutpoint!" exclaimed Mary Anne Thornycroft. "How glad I am to come back!"
"How glad I should be if I were going away from it!" thought poor Mrs. Copp.
As they were getting out of the carriage, Isaac contrived to put his arm before Anna, an intimation that he wanted to detain her. The others were suffered to go on.
"What makes you look so pale?"
"Oh, Isaac! can you ask? Your father--my uncle--may be here waiting for us. I feel sick and faint at the thought of meeting them."
"But there's no reason in the world why you should. One minute after seeing them the feeling will wear off. Ce n'est quo le premier pas qui coute."
"If they should suspect!--if they should have heard! It seems to me people need only look in my face to learn all. I have never once met your sister's eyes freely in coming down."
He laughed lightly. "Reassure yourself, my darling. There's no fear that it will be known one hour before we choose it should be."
"I am remembering always that stories may get abroad about me."
"What you have to remember is that you are my honest wife," gravely returned Isaac. "I told Mrs. Copp--I have told you--that on the faintest breath of a whisper, I should avow the truth. You cannot doubt it, Anna; nothing in the world can be so precious to me as my wife's fair fame. They are looking back for us. God bless you, my darling, and farewell. For the present, you know--and that's the worst of the whole matter--you are not my wife, but Miss Chester."