The September air is very bracing this morning," he said,
walking away to the far end of the piazza, while Anna broke the seal
of the envelope, hesitating a moment ere taking the letter from it,
and trembling as if she guessed what it might contain.
There was a quivering of the eyelids, a paling of the lips as she
glanced at the first few lines, then with a low, moaning cry, "No, no,
oh, no, not that," she fell upon her face.
To lift her in his arms and carry her to her room was the work of an
instant, and then, leaving her to Mrs. Meredith's care, Thornton
Hastings went back to finish Arthur's letter, which might or might not
throw light upon the fainting fit.
"Dear Thornton," Arthur wrote, "you will be surprised, no doubt, to
hear that your old college chum is at last engaged--positively
engaged--but not to one of the fifty lambs about whom you once
jocosely wrote. The shepherd has wandered from his flock, and is about
to take into his bosom a little, stray ewe-lamb--Lucy Harcourt by
name--"
"The deuce he is," was Thornton's ejaculation, and then he read on.
"She is an acquaintance of yours, I believe, so I need not describe
her, except to say that she is somewhat changed from the gay butterfly
of fashion she used to be, and in time will make as demure a little
Quakeress as one could wish to see.
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