Poor Menie for the moment could have wished him a thousand miles away; but she only sat down, very suddenly and quietly, on a low seat by the wall, while Miss Annie tripped away to arrange some ornamental matters on the tea-table, where her little china cups already sparkled, and her silver tea-pot shone. Menie took courage to look at her kinswoman’s face as this duty was being performed. Withered and fantastic in its decayed graces, there was yet a something of kindness in the smile. The face had been pretty once in its youthful days—a sad misfortune to it now, for if it were not for this long-departed, dearly remembered beauty, there might have been a natural sunshine in Miss Annie Laurie’s face.
As it was, the wintry light in it played about gaily, and Miss Annie made very undeniable exertions to please her visitors. She told Menie of her own pursuits, as a girl might have done in expectation of a sharer in them; and to Mrs Laurie she gave a sketch of her “society,” the few friends who, Menie thought, made up a very respectable list in point of numbers. Mrs Laurie from her sofa, and Menie on her seat by the wall, looking slightly prim and very quiet in her shy confusion, made brief answers as they could. Their entertainer did not much want their assistance; and by-and-by Menie woke with a great flush to hear the little gate swing open, to discern a lofty figure passing the window, and the sound of a quick step on the gravel path. Randall was at the door.
And Randall, looking very stately, very gracious and deferential, came through the shower of “delighteds” and “most happys” with which Miss Annie saluted him, with a bow of proud grace and much dignity of manner, to Mrs Laurie’s extreme surprise, and Menie’s shy exultation. Another hour passed over very well. The strangers grew familiar with Miss Annie; then by-and-by they strayed out, all of them, into the sweet evening air, so full of charmed distant voices, the hum and breath of far-off life; and Menie found herself, before she was aware, alone under a sky slowly softening into twilight, in a pretty stretch of sloping turf, where some young birch-trees stood about gracefully, like so many children resting in a game, with Randall Home by her side.
And they had found time for various pieces of talk, quite individual and peculiar to themselves, before Menie lifted her face, with its flush of full unshadowed pleasure, and, glancing up to the other countenance above her, asked, “When is the next book coming, Randall?”
“What next book, May Marion?”
This was his caressing name for her, as May alone was his father’s.
“The next book—our next book,” said Menie. “I do not know much, nor maybe care much, about anybody else’s. Randall—our own—when is it coming?”
“What if it should never come at all?”
Randall drew her fingers through his hand with playful tenderness, half as he might have done with a child.
“Yes—but I know it is to come at all, so that is not my question,” said Menie. “I want to know when—not if. Tell me—for you need not be coy, or think of keeping such a secret from me.”