“May! you look quite----” lovely, Agnes was about to say; but she paused in consideration of her sister’s feelings, and said “frightened” instead.
“Oh, no wonder! Agnes, something has happened,” said Marian. She began to look even more frightened as she spoke; yet the pretty saucy lip moved a little into something that resembled suppressed and silent laughter. In spite, however, of this one evidence of a secret mixture of amusement, Marian was extremely grave and visibly afraid.
“What has happened? Is it about Rachel?” asked Agnes, instantly referring Marian’s agitation to the subject of her own thoughts.
“About Rachel! you are always thinking about Rachel,” said Marian, with a momentary sparkle of indignation. “It is something a great deal more important; it is--oh, Agnes! Sir Langham has been speaking to me----”
Agnes raised herself immediately with a start of eagerness and surprise, accusing herself. She had forgotten all about this close and pressing danger--she had neglected her guardianship--she looked with an appalled and pitying look upon her beautiful sister. In Agnes’s eyes, it was perfectly visible already that here was an end of Marian’s happiness--that she had bestowed her heart upon Sir Langham, and that accordingly this heart had nothing to do but to break.
“He said---- oh, I am sure you know very well what he was sure to say,” cried Marian, holding down her head, and tying knots in her little handkerchief; “he said--he liked me--and wanted to know if I would consent. But it does not matter what he said,” said Marian, sinking her voice very low, and redoubling the knots upon the cambric; “it is not my fault, indeed, Agnes. I did not think he would have done it; I thought it was all like Harry Oswald; and you never said a word. What was I to do?”
“What did _you_ say?” asked Agnes again, with breathless anxiety, feeling the reproach, but making no answer to it.
“I said nothing: it was in Mrs Edgerley’s morning-room, and she came in almost before he was done speaking; and I was so very glad, and ran away. What could I do?” said again the beautiful culprit, becoming a little more at her ease; but during all this time she never lifted her eyes to her sister’s face.