"Monday or Tuesday, or whenever Dolly is well enough to come."

"I was thinking that possibly Skeffy would arrive by Tuesday."

"So he might, Tony, and that would be nice company for him,--the doctor and Dolly."

There was something positively comic in the expression of Tory's face as he heard this speech, uttered in all the simplicity of good faith; but he forbore to reply, and, throwing a plaid across his shoulders, gave his habitual little nod of good-bye, and went out. It was a cold starlit night,--far colder on the sea-sh.o.r.e than in the sheltered valleys inland. Tony, however, took little heed of this; his thoughts were bent upon whither he was going; while between times his mother's last words would flash across him, and once he actually laughed aloud as he said, "Nice company for Skeffy! Poor mother little knows what company he keeps, and what fine folk he lives with."

The minister's cottage lay at the foot of a little hill, beside a small stream or burn,--a lonesome spot enough, and more than usually dreary in the winter season; but, as Tony drew nigh, he could make out the mellow glow of a good fire as the gleam, stealing between the ill-closed shutters, fell upon the gravel without. "I suppose," muttered Tony, "she 's right glad to be at home again, humble as it is;" and then came another, but not so pleasant thought, "But why did she come back so suddenly? why did she take this long journey in such a season, and she so weak and ill?" He had his own dark misgivings about this, but he had not the courage to face them, even to himself; and now he crept up to the window and looked in.

A good fire blazed on the hearth; and at one side of it, deep in his old leather chair,--the one piece of luxury the room possessed,--the minister lay fast asleep, while opposite to him, on a low stool, sat Dolly, her head resting on the arm of a chair at her side. If her closely cropped hair and thin, wan face gave her a look of exceeding youthful-ness, the thin band that hung down at her side told of suffering and sickness. A book had fallen from her fingers, but her gaze was bent upon the burning log before her--mayhap in unconsciousness; mayhap she thought she read there something that revealed the future.

Lifting the latch--there was no lock, nor was any needed--of the front door, Tony moved stealthily along the little pa.s.sage, turned the handle of the door, and on tiptoe moved across the room, unseen by Dolly, and unheard. As his hand touched the chair on which her head leaned, she looked up and saw him. She did not start nor cry out, but a deep crimson blush covered her face and her temples, and spread over her throat.

"Hush!" said she, in a whisper, as she gave him her hand without rising; "hush! he's very tired and weary; don't awake him."

"I 'll not awake him," whispered Tony, as he slid into the chair, still holding her hand, and bending down his head till it leaned against her brow. "And how are you, dear Dolly? Are you getting quite strong again?"

"Not yet awhile," said she, with a faint shadow of a smile, "but I suppose I shall soon. It was very kind of you to come over so soon; and it's a severe night too. How is Mrs. Butler?"

"Well and hearty; she sent you scores of loves,--if it was like long ago, I 'd have said kisses too," said he, laughing. But Dolly never smiled; a grave, sad look, indeed, came over her, and she turned her head away.

"I was so glad to hear of your coming home, dear Dolly. I can't tell you how dreary the Burnside seems without you. Ay, pale as you are, you make it look bright and cheery at once. It was a sudden thought, was n't it?"

"I believe it was; but we 'll talk of it all another time. Tell me of home. Janet says it's all as I left it: is it so?"

"I suspect it is. What changes did you look for?"

"I scarcely know. I believe when one begins to brood over one's own thoughts, one thinks the world without ought to take on the same dull cold coloring. Haven't you felt that?"

"I don't know--I may; but I'm not much given to brooding. But how comes it that you, the lightest-hearted girl that ever lived--What makes you low-spirited?"

"First of all, Tony, I have been ill; then, I have been away from home; but come, I have not come back to complain and mourn. Tell me of your friends and neighbors. How are all at the Abbey? We'll begin with the grand folk."

"I know little of them; I have n't been there since I saw you last."

"And how is that, Tony? You used to live at the Abbey when I was here long ago."

"Well, it is as I tell you. Except Alice Trafford,--and that only in a carriage, to exchange a word as she pa.s.sed,--I have not seen one of the Lyles for several weeks."

"And didn't she reproach you? Did n't she remark on your estrangement?"

"She said something,--I forget what," said he, impatiently.

"And what sort of an excuse did you make?"

"I don't remember. I suppose I blundered out something about being engaged or occupied. It was not of much consequence, anyhow, for she did n't attach any importance to my absence."

[Ill.u.s.tration: 266]

"Don't say that, Tony, for I remember my father saying, in one of his letters, that he met Sir Arthur at the fair of Ballymena, and that he said, 'If you should see Tony, doctor, tell him I 'm hunting for him everywhere, for I have to buy some young stock. If I do it without Tony Butler's advice, I shall have the whole family upon me.'"

"That's easy enough to understand. I was very useful and they were very kind; but I fancy that each of us got tired of his part."

"They were stanch and good friends to you, Tony. I 'm sorry you 've given them up," said she, sorrowfully.

"What if it was _they_ that gave me up? I mean, what if I found the conditions upon which I went there were such as I could not stoop to?

Don't ask me any more about it; I have never let a word about it escape my lips, and I am ashamed now to hear myself talk of it."

"Even to me, Tony,--to sister Dolly?"

"That's true; so you are my dear, dear sister," said he, and he stooped and kissed her forehead; "and you shall hear it all, and how it happened."

Tony began his narrative of that pa.s.sage with Mark Lyle with which our reader is already acquainted, little noticing that to the deep scarlet that at first suffused Dolly's cheeks, a leaden pallor had succeeded, and that she lay with half-closed eyes, in utter unconsciousness of what he was saying.

"This, of course," said Tony, as his story flowed on,--"this, of course, was more than I could bear, so I hurried home, not quite clear what was best to be done. I had n't _you_, Dolly, to consult, you know;" he looked down as he said this, and saw that a great tear lay on her cheek, and that she seemed fainting. "Dolly, my dear,--my own dear Dolly,"

whispered he, "are you ill,--are you faint?"

"Lay my head back against the wall," sighed she, in a weak voice; "it's pa.s.sing off."

"It was this great fire, I suppose," said Tony, as he knelt down beside her, and bathed her temples with some cold water that stood near.

"Coming out of the cold air, a fire will do that."

"Yes," said she, trying to smile, "it was that."

"I thought so," said he, rather proud of his acuteness. "Let me settle you comfortably here;" and he lifted her up in his strong arms, and placed her in the chair where he had been sitting. "Dear me, Dolly, how light you are!"

She shook her head, but gave a smile, at the same time, of mingled melancholy and sweetness.

"I 'd never have believed you could be so light; but you 'll see what home and native air will do," added he, quickly, and ashamed of his own want of tact. "My little mother, too, is such a nurse, I 'll be sworn that before a month's over you 'll be skipping over the rocks, or helping me to launch the coble, like long ago,--won't you, Dolly?"

"Go on with what you were telling me," said she, faintly.

"Where was I? I forget where I stopped. Oh, yes; I remember it now. I went home as quick as I could, and I wrote Mark Lyle a letter. I know you 'll laugh at the notion of a letter by my hand; but I think I said what I wanted to say. I did n't want to disclaim all that I owed his family; indeed I never felt so deeply the kindness they had shown me as at the moment I was relinquishing it forever; but I told him that if he presumed, on the score of that feeling, to treat me like some humble hanger-on of his house, I'd beg to remind him that by birth at least I was fully his equal. That was the substance of it, but I won't say that it was conveyed in the purest and best style."

"What did he reply?"

"Nothing,--not one line. I ought to say that I started for England almost immediately after; but he took no notice of me when I came back, and we never met since."

"And his sisters,--do you suspect that they know of this letter of yours?"

"I cannot tell, but I suppose not. It's not likely Mark would speak of it."

"How, then, do they regard your abstaining from calling there?"

"As a caprice, I suppose. They always thought me a wayward, uncertain sort of fellow. It's a habit your well-off people have, to look on their poorer friends as queer and odd and eccentric,--eh, Dolly?"

"There's some truth in the remark, Tony," said she, smiling; "but I scarcely expected to hear you come out as a moralist."