But as the spring advanced, a shade of sadness crept over her happiness, a film like the impalpable dust that gathers on a fine picture hanging always in the light. Eustace had ceased to write. Two months had gone by, and no word had come from him. A strange, new fear was tugging at Betty’s heart.
“Naught of evil has befallen him, or Mary would know; and you said they had no tidings?” she asked wistfully one evening, as she leaned against Joscelyn’s window and watched the pale-petalled stars blossom through the purple gloaming.
“I rode all the way to the Singletons’ yesterday afternoon on purpose to ask, and they know nothing.”
“And his mother feels no uneasiness?”
“None. She says Lord Cornwallis would immediately inform her if he should be killed.”
Betty heaved a deep sigh; and then that latent fear came out, “I suppose he finds the ladies of the city so beautiful and entertaining that he has forgotten his—his friends here.”
“S-o! that is what makes you so long of face these days? Well, I do not believe a word of it. Eustace is no jilt. You will find that you at least are remembered, and that his silence is from reasonable cause.”
“His cousin, Ellen Singleton, is such a beautiful woman—you remember Richard told us of her in his letter about the Philadelphia fête. Like Mary, he said, only more lovely. They must of necessity be much together, for she, too, is in New York.”
“And betrothed to Major Grant, you jealous child.”