“They told me you had gone up to poor Widow Carrick's—and I took the short way, thinking to find you there. But what has disturbed you, my dear Mary? Something has, and greatly too.”
She looked up with an affectionate smile into his face, although there trembled a tear upon her eyelids, as she spoke—
“Do not ask me, my dear Frank; nor don't think the circumstance of much importance. It is a little secret of mine, which I cannot for the present disclose.”
“Well, my love, I only ask to know if the woman that left you was Poll Doolin.”
“I cannot answer even that, Frank; but such as the secret is, I trust you shall soon know it.”
“That is enough, my darling. I am satisfied that you would conceal nothing from either your family or me, which might be detrimental either to yourself or us—or which we ought to know.”
“That is true,” said she, “I feel that it is true.”
“But then on the other hand,” said he, playfully, “suppose our little darling were in possession of a secret which we ought not to know—what character should we bestow on the secret?”
This, though said in love and jest, distressed her so much that she was forced to tell him so—“my dear Francis,” she replied, with as much composure as she could assume, “do not press me on the subject;—I cannot speak upon it now, and I consequently must throw myself on your love and generosity only for a short time, I hope.”
“Not a syllable, my darling, on the subject until you resume it yourself—how are Widow Carrick's sick children?”