So after that first evening the days and nights went by, went by on leaden wings; for I wanted the thing over, it seemed I couldn't wait, I desired my destiny to be accomplished and done with. Angus was ever there when occasion granted,—for there were drives and sails and rambles to lead him off; and though he'd urge, I would not join them, not even at my mother's bidding,—she had taught me to have a strange shrinking from all careless eyes;—and then, moreover, there were dinners and balls, and them he must needs attend, seeing they were given for him,—and I fancy here that my mother half repented her decree concerning the time when I should enter society, or, rather, should not,—yet she never knew how to take step in recedure.
But what made it hardest of all was a word of Margray's one day as I sat over at her house hushing the little Graeme, who was sore vexed with the rash, and his mother was busy plaiting ribbons and muslins for Effie,—Effie, who seemed all at once to be blossoming out of her slight girlhood into the perfect rose of the woman that Mary Strathsay was already, and about her nothing lingering rathe or raw, but everywhere a sweet and ripe maturity. And Margray said,—
"Now, Alice, tell me, why are you so curt with Angus? Did he start when he saw you first?"
"Nay, I scarcely think so, Margray; he knew about it, you know. 'Sleep, baby, sleep, in slumber deep, and smite across thy dreaming'"——
"'Deed, he didn't! He told me so himself. He said he'd been ever fancying you fresh and fair as the day he left you,—and his heart cracked when you turned upon him."
"Poor Angus, then,—he never showed it. 'Hush, baby, hush'"——
"He said he'd have died first!"
"Then perhaps he never meant for you to tell me, Margray."
"Oh, what odds? He said,—I'll tell you what else he said,—you're a kind, patient heart, and there's no need for you to fret,—he said, as he'd done you such injury, were there even no other consideration, he should deem it his duty to repair it, so far as possible, both by the offer of his hand, and, should it be accepted, by tender faithfulness for life."
"Oh, Margray! did Angus say that? Oh, how chanced he to? Oh, how dared he?"