Most tenderly she was lifted and carried from the room.
[CHAPTER XXXV.]
"Lynde is down-stairs, asking for you, Leonie. I don't think you are well enough to see him, but Mr. Pryor insisted that I should ask you. What shall I say to him, dear?"
Edith Pyne bent and kissed her cousin affectionately, as she asked the question, and Leonie's eyes filled with tears. Kindness had never seemed to affect her so much as since the death of poor Liz, and she had never received more of it. They all seemed to vie with each other in their attempts to do most to make her comfortable, and in consequence kept her in a state bordering on hysteria.
"I will go down to see him, of course," she returned, with a little quiet smile. "You are all too good to me. You will make a perfect baby of me if this continues."
She arose, and assisted by Edith, made her way down-stairs; but at the door of the library the support was withdrawn, and she was left to enter alone.
She did not notice the fact, as she thought she should find all the family gathered there, if she thought of it at all; but she seemed to understand when she saw that the room contained Lynde Pyne alone.
A dainty crimson overspread her face, but controlling her timidity, she entered and quietly placed her hand in the one extended.
Lynde drew her down beside him upon a sofa before either of them spoke.