He offered his arm to Hilary, who started and colored exceedingly at the sudden interruption to a sentence, which from its tone and manner, she was particularly anxious to hear completed.
Mr. Huyton looked inquiringly at her companion, and then rousing Maurice from the whispered conversation with Dora, which had quite engrossed him, desired to be presented to his friend.
Hilary’s hand was under his arm, as he made polite speeches to Captain Hepburn, and he looked so very much as if he thought she belonged to him, that the other could not forbear noticing it; and a doubt shot through his mind, whether the conjectures of Maurice relative to his engagement to Miss Fielding, could have the slightest foundation.
It had been this very announcement which had raised his spirits, and made him bolder in his own advances; and the contradiction of all his hopes which his fancy drew from Charles Huyton’s manner, was such as immediately to depress and silence him.
“Where are my sisters?” inquired Hilary, looking round, now first aware that they had left her.
Charles told her they had gone out on the lawn with Mrs. Fielding some time before—had she not missed them? he hoped, then, she had been pleasantly engaged. It was said in a simple and friendly tone; but the thought of betraying such absence
of mind, deepened the color in her cheeks, and she glanced apprehensively at Captain Hepburn, to see if he had noticed it.
Perhaps he had, for his eyes met hers, and she hastily looked away.
“Are you going, Hilary?” said Dora, now perceiving the movement around her; “oh! don’t leave me! I have not the least notion where my sister and Lady Margaret are.”
“You must come with us then, Miss Barham,” replied their host; “for Miss Duncan must go—Victoria wants her.”