CHAPTER XXII.

"YOU MUST WAIT AND SEE."

"How can you leave Miss Martell?" asked Lottie, as Hemstead approached propitiatingly with a large armful of the choicest evergreens.

"Well, I can," he replied with a smile.

"As yet, but the next time you will stay longer, and the next longer still."

"That depends. I would not remain at her side, nor at any one's, if I thought they were tiring of me a little."

"O, she got tired of you."

"Well, yes; a little, I think. She suddenly seemed to lose her interest in the conversation. Still she was very good to talk to me as long and as kindly as she did. She is a very superior woman.

It has never been my good fortune to meet just such a lady before."

"Make the most of your rare 'good fortune.'"

"I have."

"And now that she is tired of you, you come back to me as a dernier ressort."

"Coming back to you, is like coming back home, for you have given me the only home-like feeling that I have had during my visit."

The language of coquetry was to Lottie like her mother-tongue, and she fell into it as naturally as she breathed. Only now, instead of suggesting the false hope that he had been missed and she had cared, it expressed her true feeling, for she did care.

De Forrest now returned from a momentary absence, and had it not been for his garrulity the little group would have been a rather silent one. Both young men sought to supply Lottie with the sprays of green that she was twining. She took the evergreens chiefly from De Forrest's hands, but gave her thoughts and eyes to Hemstead. He, with man's usual penetration, thought De Forrest the favored one, and was inclined to reverse his half-formed opinion that she was destined to pathetic martyrdom, because bound by an engagement to a man whom she could not love.

"He can't think much of me," thought Lottie, with a sigh, "or he couldn't speak so frankly." She, too, was losing her wonted quick discernment.

Only lynx-eyed Bel Parton partially surmised the truth, and suspected that Lottie was developing a genuine, though of course a pa.s.sing interest, in the student whom at first she had purposed to beguile in mere reckless sport.

During the remainder of the afternoon and evening, De Forrest was Lottie's shadow, and she could escape him, and be with Hemstead, only by remaining with all the others. She was longing for another of their suggestive talks, when, without the restraint of the curious and unsympathetic, they could continue the theme that De Forrest had interrupted on Sunday afternoon.

She was thinking how to bring this about, when the old plan of visiting Mrs. Dlimm occurred to her, and she adopted it at once.

Getting a moment aside with Hemstead, by being down to breakfast a little before the others, she said, "After my naughty behavior in regard to our visit to Mrs. Dlimm, will you still take me there?"

"I wish you would give me a chance," he answered eagerly.

"Well, I will, at ten this morning. But please say nothing about it.

Drive to the door in the cutter, and I will be ready. If the matter is discussed, there may be half a dozen other projects started."

Hemstead ate but an indifferent breakfast, and there was also a faint glow of expectant excitement in Lottie's face.

Hemstead promptly sought his aunt, and asked if he might have a horse and the single sleigh.

"I hope another time will answer," said Mrs. Marchmont, carelessly.

"Addie wishes the horses this morning, but I believe proposes taking you all out."

But Hemstead was not to be baffled, and acted with more energy than prudence perhaps. Lottie from her window saw him posting with long strides towards the village, and exultingly surmised his object.

At ten he drove up to the door with a neat little turnout from the livery stable; and she tripped down and took a seat at his side, and they were off before the rest of the household realized their purpose.

They all looked at each other questioningly, as a few moments later they gathered in the parlor for a general sleighride.

Mr. Dimmerly, who had quietly watched proceedings, broke out into his cackling laugh, as he chuckled, "He shows his blood. A dozen seminaries could not quench him utterly."

Mrs. Marchmont frowned. She rigidly applied the rules of propriety to all save her own children, and she justly thought that both Hemstead and Lottie had failed in courtesy to her and her guests, by stealing away, as it were, without any explanations. But people of one idea often fail in more than mere matters of courtesy; and Hemstead and Lottie were emphatically becoming people of one idea.

And they both had misgivings and a sense of wrong-doing as they drove away without a word of explanation.

Mrs. Marchmont was still more puzzled when Addie exclaimed petulantly, "I thought the agreement was that Lottie should carry out the joke when and where we could all enjoy it."

The lady was led to suspect that there was something on foot that might need her investigation, and she quietly resolved to use her eyes and ears judiciously. She well knew that her proud and fashionable sister, Lottie's mother, would hold her to strict account if Lottie did anything foolish.

Bel merely shrugged her shoulders cynically. She had a certain kind of loyalty to her friend, and said all her harsh things to Lottie herself, and not behind her back.

De Forrest had no other resource than to believe that Lottie was carrying out the practical joke; but a sorry jest he found it that morning, during which he scarcely spoke to any one.

They drove over to town for Harcourt, but he greatly provoked Addie by pleading that his business would not permit absence. During the rest of the drive they all might have formed part of a funeral procession.

But the snow-crystals did not sparkle in the sunlight more brightly than Lottie's eyes, as she turned to her companion, and said, "I am so delighted that we are safely off on our drive."

"O, it's the 'drive' you are thinking of. That is better than I hoped. I thought we were visiting Mrs. Dlimm."

"So we are, and I want to see her too," said Lottie, with a sudden blush.

"Well, I'm glad you don't dread the long, intervening miles, with no better company than mine."

"It's a good chance to learn patient endurance," she replied, with a look delightfully arch. "So please drive slower."

The horse instantly came to a walk.

"That is the other extreme," she continued. "You always go to extremes, as, for instance, your quixotic purpose to go out among the border ruffians."

"Honestly, Miss Marsden," said Hemstead, his laughing face suddenly becoming grave, "you do not now think, in your heart, my purpose to be a home missionary 'quixotic'?"

"I don't know much about my heart, Mr. Hemstead, except that it has always been very perverse. But I now wish I had a better one.

You have disturbed the equanimity with which I could do wrong most wofully. I even feel a little guilty for leaving them all this morning, with no explanations."

"It was hardly right, now I think of it," said Hemstead, reflectively.

"Have you just thought of it? How preoccupied you have been! What have you been thinking about? Yes, it was wrong; but as it is the first wicked thing I have caught you in I am quite comforted. I have been hoping all along that you would do something just a little bit encouragingly wicked."

"How little you understand me! My wickedness and consequent twinges of conscience have been my chief sources of trouble thus far."