"Yes, delightful!—I am so pleased!" but there is more mirth in the enforced grin of an unfleshed skull than in mine.
That will never take in Barbara. I try again—once, twice—each time with less prosperity than the last. Then I give it up. I must trust to Providence.
As the time for her coming draws nigh, I fall to thinking of the different occasions since my marriage, on which I have watched for expected comings from this window—have searched that bend in the drive with impatient eyes—and of the disappointment to which, on the two occasions that rise most prominently before my mind's eye, I became a prey.
Well, I am to be subject to no disappointment—if it would be a disappointment—to-day.
Almost before I expect her—almost before she is due—she is here in the room with me, and we are looking at one another. I, indeed, am staring at her with a black and stupid surprise.
"Good Heavens!" say I, bluntly; "what have you been doing to yourself? how happy you look!"
I have always known theoretically that happiness was becoming; and I have always thought Barbara most fair.
"Fairer than Rachel by the palmy well,
Fairer than Ruth among the fields of corn,
Fair as the angel that said, 'Hail!' she seemed,"
but now, what a lovely brightness, like that of clouds remembering the gone sun, shines all about her! What a radiant laughter in her eyes! What a splendid carnation on her cheeks! (How glad I am that I did not tell!)
"Do I?" she says, softly, and hiding her face, with the action of a shy child, on my shoulders. "I dare say."