“Oh, Archie, I feel as though I shall never miss you so much!” exclaimed the poor girl, throwing down her work and clinging to him. “When shall I see your dear face again?—not until Christmas?”
“And not then, I expect. I shall most likely run down some time in January, and then I shall try hard to take you back 108 with me, just for a visit. Mattie will be dull, and wanting to see some of you, and I will not have one of the others until you have been.”
“I don’t believe mother will spare me even for that,” returned Grace, with a sudden conviction that her mother’s memory was retentive, and that she would be punished in that way for her sins of this evening; “but promise me, Archie, that you will come, if it be only for a few days.”
“Oh, I will promise you that. I cannot last longer without seeing you, Grace!” And he stroked her soft hair as she still clung to him.
The next day Archibald bade his family good-bye: his manner had not changed toward his mother, and Mrs. Drummond thought his kiss decidedly cold.
“You will be good to Mattie, and try to make the poor girl happy; you will do at least as much as this,” she said, detaining him as he was turning from her to see Grace.
“Oh, yes, I will be good to her,” he returned, indifferently, “but I cannot promise that she will not find her life dull.” And then he took Grace in his arms, and whispered to her to be patient, and that all would be well one day; and Mrs. Drummond, though she did not hear the whisper, saw the embrace and the long lingering look between the brother and sister, and pressed her thin lips together and went back to her parlor and mending-basket, feeling herself an unhappy mother, whose love was not requited by her children, and disposed to be harder than ever towards Grace, who had inflicted this pain on her.