"My fire is burning nicely now, Nurse," observed Garth rather hastily. "If you make me too comfortable I shall be afraid of coming here."
"There's some folks would like to see you come oftener, sir; but it is not for me to tell young ladies' secrets," and then nurse dropped her ancient curtsey and took her comely old person out of the room, while Garth, with a shrug and sigh, proceeded to dress himself.
"Oh, my golden-haired Circe!" was his inward ejaculation, and then he wondered how Queenie would look in a velvet gown with some of that fine old lace round her long white throat. "She can have no end of that sort of thing now," he said to himself.
After all the gong sounded before he was ready; but Mr. Cunningham received his excuses with good-humor, and dinner passed off with perfect tranquillity. It struck Garth that Beatrix was rather quiet and a trifle dull, and he had some difficulty in winning a look or response from her, but he soon desisted from his attempts. "Poor child, she has been having a little sisterly lecture on forwardness, I expect. Dora is not likely to allow her to monopolize me," and he bent with some secret amusement over his plate. He was reading his old friend Dora by a clearer light now.
But he soon forgot Beatrix when Dora began to talk in earnest. Dora was very brilliant and picturesque in her conversation when she chose. She gave Garth full descriptions of their places of sojourn in the Pyrenees. Now and then there were hints and touches of a softer character: had he thought of her spending long anxious days and nights in that great white-washed ward in Brussels! why had he answered her letters so curtly, exiles were always so homesick and longing: for news? did he remember her and Flo eating their solitary Christmas dinner in their odd little room, looking out on the snow-capped mountains. They had chestnut soup, and a broiled fowl, and a salad to follow, and Flo was longing all the time for a slice of turkey and some English plum-pudding, and he had never taken the trouble to tell her how they had passed the day at Church-Stile House, and so on.
It was all very graphic and interesting, and Garth took himself to task for a certain feeling of relief when Dora and her sisters had withdrawn, and the Vicar and he had plunged into their business talk.
He was half disposed to prolong it when the coffee was brought in, but, to his surprise, Flo made her appearance. "Dora has sent me to look after the fire while papa takes his nap," remarked Flo very coolly, as she produced her knitting and planted herself comfortably on the rug. "Papa has had rheumatism very badly, and if the fire goes out and he wakes up chilly there is no knowing what will happen," finished Flo, with a toss of her curly head that reminded him of Dora.
"My girls spoil me dreadfully," observed Mr. Cunningham fondly. "Don't let me keep you, Garth, we shall be in to tea presently," and there was nothing but for Garth to withdraw.
But his heart quailed within him when he entered the drawing-room, and found Dora seated alone by the fire, apparently doing nothing but toying with a little screen.
"What has become of Beatrix?" he asked at once, stopping half way and looking round for his favorite.