Meredith insisted, however, again. “You are coughing already;” and this time he accompanied his sister, and presently they returned with the cloak, which it took all his good breeding to hand to Mrs. Castleton politely, who took it as quietly as if it had been quite a matter of course, and as she returned Ruth her own, said,
“I hope you have not taken cold. You look quite blue,” and she continued to gaze at her, with an air of surprise, at anybody’s being so cold and looking so ugly.
“Sutherland,” said his friend a few days after, “your pretty Mrs. Castleton’s a bore, with her sweet manner and dilatory selfishness. I mean to cut the party and travel off for Niagara by myself. I don’t ask you, however, to do so too, if you prefer remaining with them.”
“No,” replied Sutherland, “I believe you are right. Pretty women are very charming at home, and in ball-rooms, but it is, as you say, a bore to be tied to them in traveling.”
“The girls are nice girls,” pursued the other. “If it were not for this spoilt beauty, I would rather remain with them than not.” So it was determined between them that they should go on in the night train, and so free themselves from the rest of the party, who they would meet again at Niagara.
“How strange,” said Mrs. Castleton, as her husband conveyed to her the adieux of the young men, who affected a sudden haste that must carry them immediately on. “I declare it’s quite rude,” she continued, somewhat offended.
“I am not at all surprised,” said Harry Meredith, quietly.
“It’s very provoking,” said Ruth, who knew what her brother meant, and all the ladies were for the first time quite sulky. Mrs. Castleton, for she missed the admiration of the two handsome, fashionable, agreeable young men; Ruth, because she was angry with Mrs. Castleton as being the cause of their being driven away, and Grace, not less put out than the other two at losing the society of their agreeable traveling companions—all but Mary, were in thorough bad humor.
“You seem to bear the loss of our new friends very philosophically,” said Harry Meredith.
“They were very pleasant additions to our party,” she replied, good-humoredly, “but as we started without them, and without any idea or knowledge of them, I do not think they are at all essential to our having quite as agreeable a journey as we anticipated.”