'Is Mr Dallas going to meet you, my dear?' asked Mrs Tipper anxiously.
'No; I am going on a woman's errand,' I replied, with a sad little half-smile at the thought of what their surprise would be if they could know how very literally I was speaking.
'Must you go to-day?—may not I go with you, dear Mary?' pleaded Lilian. 'You are looking so pale and unlike yourself; I do not like the idea of your going alone.'
'I should fancy that there was something really the matter with me, if I could not go alone so short a distance as that, dearie,' I lightly replied. 'I think I will allow my age to protect me.'
She drew nearer to me, looking at me in the nervous, half-afraid way she so frequently did of late, as she laid her hand upon my arm.
'I wish you would not talk like that—dear Mary, why do you?'
I was not strong enough to bear much in this way; so replied with an attempt at a jest, which made her shrink away again. I daresay my jests were flavourless enough, and in strange contrast to my looks.
Mrs Tipper's silent, anxious watchfulness was even harder to bear than Lilian's tender love. It was not my journey to town which puzzled them—I saw that they imagined I was intent upon preparing some little pleasant surprise for them at my wedding—but the change they saw in me, which no amount of diplomacy could hide.
How thankful I was, when I at length made my escape to my own room; but I was not allowed to go alone. I had to bear Lilian's loving attendance whilst I was putting on my bonnet and cloak. Indeed, she lingered by my side until I had got half-way down the lane.
'You will not be very late, Mary?'