“Ally, do you know what day to-morrow will be?” he asked, while his face wore a very doubtful, half merry, half serious expression. It was something like the sun trying to break through a fog, for he tried to look cheerful.
Alice paused a moment as if in thought, then suddenly exclaimed, “I declare, it is my birthday, and I had almost forgotten it. It was very good of my dear papa to remind me of such good news, after I had kept him waiting so long for his breakfast,” she added, playfully.
“But do you know who I expect to-morrow?” he continued.
It was her turn now to look doubtful and perplexed.
“Yes, Ally,” he said, “this afternoon Harry Wilson and my old schoolmate, his father, will be here. You must save all your good looks for Harry, for I expect you will fall in love with him at first sight.”
It was really with much pain that Old John made this announcement, though he spoke it in as cheerful a manner as possible, for he knew the effect it would have on his daughter. He seemed to make it more from a sense of duty than pleasure, as it were something which must be told sooner or later; and more clouds gathered about his honest face than had been seen there since the death of his wife, when he saw the effect it had upon Alice. The cheerful smiles vanished from her face; the color came and went, and came and went, and at length left her deadly pale. Her hand trembled and her voice quivered, as she attempted in vain to make some cheerful remark.
“At least you will try to like him, for my sake, wont you, Ally, dear?” said her father.
She uttered a faint “yes”—so faint that it might have been “no,” for all Old John heard; and pleading some excuse, left the room.
“Bad business, this,” said her father, after he was left alone, and talking as if to some invisible friend. “Bad business!” and whistling a doleful strain of a doleful tune, he also left the room.
And Alice, poor Alice, she felt lonely enough as she sat alone in her little room. Thoughts of the dream that had made her so cheerful but a short time before, now pressed like an incubus upon her breast. She knew how much her father was attached to his old schoolmate, Mr. Wilson, and how much he desired the union of their two families. It had long been talked of, but always as something which was about to happen at some distant, indefinite time; and though many years had passed since they first began to talk of it, it still seemed as indefinite and far from accomplishment as ever; and she never thought to trouble herself about it; but now the event seemed to spring up like a phantom directly before her; and so sudden had been the announcement that she knew not what to do.