I retired to my chamber, and finished my letter to Harrison.
The day wore slowly away, as it always does when you expect any important event on the morrow.
The evening was bright and beautiful as an evening in June could well be. Margaretta had only been visible at dinner, her time having been occupied between Alice and making preparations for her father's journey. At tea, she looked languid and paler than usual, and when we rose from the table I proposed a stroll in the Park. She consented with a smile of pleasure, and we were soon wandering side by side beneath our favourite trees.
"You will feel very lonely during your father's absence, my little cousin?"
"Then you must exert all your powers of pleasing, Geoffrey, to supply his place."
"But I am going too: I leave Moncton at the same time, for an indefinite period."
"Worse and worse," and she tried to smile. It would not do. The tears were in her beautiful eyes. That look of tender inquiry caused a strange swelling at my heart.
"You will not forget me, Margaret?"
"Do you think it such an easy matter, that you deem it necessary to make such a request."
"I am but a poor relation, whom few persons would regard with other feelings than those of indifference. This I know is not the case with your excellent father and you. I shall ever regard both with gratitude and veneration—and I feel certain, that should we never meet again, I should always be remembered with affectionate kindness."