"How good of you to come! papa and I both wanted you so," putting up a white little hand to stroke the mare's glossy coat. "Poor old Bess, how hot she looks, and how fast you must have driven her; you are quite twenty minutes before the time we expected you."
"Have you been looking out for me? I am glad I was wanted," returned Garth, leaning down to take possession of the little hand. "I suppose Bess and I were both in a hurry to be here," he continued, as he looked down with kindly scrutiny at the dainty figure beside him.
Dora was a little paler than usual, and the blue eyes were a trifle heavy, but somehow her appearance had never pleased him better. She had dressed herself with even greater care than was customary with her. The soft cream-colored dress, with its graceful folds, rested the eye with a sense of fitness. One tiny rosebud gave a mere hint of color.
"I am glad you wanted me," he went on, with a little stress on the personal pronoun. "I must have been engaged indeed to have remained away at such a time."
"Yes, indeed. Poor papa, and poor dear Flo!" returned Dora, earnestly, leading him into the hall. "How could we help being very anxious and unhappy, and after Beattie's miserable letter too? But that is the worst of girls; they cannot help exaggerating things."
"I was afraid from what you said that poor Florence is very ill."
"She is ill, of course; one is always afraid of typhoid fever for a growing girl; and then papa has such a horror of German doctors. I must confess myself that I have every faith in Madame Shleïfer—such a judicious, temperate letter, and so different to poor Beattie's, who is crying herself to sleep every night, and making herself ill."
"But Madame Shleïfer does not love Florence as Beatrix does; she is liable to take alarm less easily," returned Garth, moved at this picture of the warm-hearted, impetuous girl he remembered so well.
"Beatrix's affection is not greater than ours," replied Dora, calmly. "Florence is the youngest, and I have brought her up from such a child. It is inconsiderate and a pity to write like that, and has upset papa dreadfully; but, as I told him, it was only Beatrix's way. I am afraid you will not find us very cheerful company to-night," looking up with a certain bright dewiness in her eyes—not exactly tears, but a suspicion of them.
Dora never cried, as he knew he had once heard her say that it never mended matters, and only spoiled the complexion; but as she looked up at him now with a certain unbending of the lip, and a shining mist in her blue eyes, he felt himself touched and softened.