“Now, Dick, if you don’t behave I won’t read you another word!” Edith exclaimed, one day, when he had started out of his chair, and begun to walk about.
He came back with a stumbling step, and seated himself, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.
“I believe I shall have to postpone St. Paul till I am able to go out-doors,” he said breathlessly.
Observing his eyes frequently wander to the St. Ignatius, she remarked: “He looks as though he were present when our Lord was crucified, and could not forget the sight.”
“We were all present!” he exclaimed. “How can we forget it?”
Long and intimate as their acquaintance had been, Edith thought now that she had not known Dick Rowan well. She had praised, defended, and loved him with sisterly fondness, but always, involuntarily, almost unconsciously, from a higher plane than his. Now she looked up to him as her superior. But, in truth, she had know him well, and done him full justice. The difference now was that the full current of his nature was turned into a higher channel.
One day Hester sent the carriage to take Edith to see the family house, which was as complete as it could be before the arrival of the family. Hester herself was detained at home by company, but she sent a line: “Carl will be there, and the man who is putting up the curtains, and the woman who is cleaning the closet in your room. So you will not be lost, nor want for information.”
Edith had just begun her reading when the note was given to her. She handed it to Dick to read.
“That settles the question,” he said, holding out his hand for the book. “While you read to me yesterday, the thought occurred to me that I could do it for myself, and I meant that this should be your last reading. Go and take the air, Edith. You have been too much shut up. This is your last day but one with me as an invalid.”
She looked at him with a startled expression.
“Because,” he answered smilingly to her look, “to-morrow I drive out, the day after I shall sit down-stairs, and the next day I shall forget that I have ever been sick.”
He looked thoroughly contented and cheerful. There was no lurking sadness, nor reluctance to have her go. Dick was too transparent to hide it if there were. As well might the lake show a smooth surface while waves were rolling below. His soul had, indeed, always been more placid than his manner.