She smiled at his confusion, as kindly as the ideal of his day-dream. “I've been spending the summer with Madeline, and I've spent most of it out-of-doors, sketching. Have you been well?”
“Yes—not very; oh yes, I'm well—” She had begun to move forward with the last question, and he found himself walking with her. “Did she—has Miss Swan come back with you?” he asked, looking her in the eyes with more question than he had put into his words.
“No, I don't think she'll come back this winter,” said the girl. “You know,” she went on, colouring a little, “that she's married now?”
“No,” said Lemuel.
“Yes. To Mr. Berry. And I have a letter from him for you.”
“Was he there with you, this summer?” asked Lemuel, ignoring alike Berry's marriage and the letter from him.
“Oh yes; of course! And I liked him better than I used to. He is very good, and if Madeline didn't have to go so far West to live! He will know how to appreciate her, and there are not many who can do that! Her father thinks he has a great deal of ability. Yes, if Madeline had to get married!”
She talked as if convincing and consoling herself, and there was an accent of loneliness in it all that pierced Lemuel's preoccupation; he had hardly noted how almost pathetically glad she was to see him. “You'll miss her here,” he ventured.
“Oh, I don't dare to think of it,” cried the girl. “I don't know what I shall do! When I first saw you, just now, it brought up Madeline and last winter so that it seemed too much to bear!”
They had walked out of the garden across Charles Street, and were climbing the slope of Beacon Street Mall, in the Common. “I suppose,” she continued, “the only way will be to work harder, and try to forget it. They wanted me to go out and stay with them; but of course I couldn't. I shall work, and I shall read. I shall not find another Madeline Swan! You must have been reading a great deal this summer, Mr. Barker,” she said, in turning upon him from her bereavement. “Have you seen any of the old boarders? Or Mrs. Harmon? I shall never have another winter like that at the poor old St. Albans!”