“It is nothing, my love, nothing,” she said, when Lucy hastened to her rescue; “only a little awkwardness on my part, and my old black silk won’t hurt.” She looked up with a smile in Lucy’s face, when lo! the appearance sailed into the air over Lucy’s head, and hung there magically, almost touching the girl’s fair hair. “How awkward I am,” Mrs. Stone cried, looking quite pale and spilling more tea. She thought it was something diabolical, a piece of witchcraft; but it can not be supposed that it was an easy matter to drive it out of her thoughts. She scarcely knew what happened afterward, till she had bidden the Trevors good-night, and found herself in the muddy bit of road which led to the White House, and got rid, in the darkness, of that startling legend. Was it diabolical, or was it a suggestion from heaven? Perhaps it would have been more near the mark if she had remembered that it was a suggestion from Miss Southwood, which she had crushed with infinite scorn when it was made; but Mrs. Stone did not, or would not, remember this. The night was damp and foggy, and the lights of her own house appeared to her all blurred and hazy, with prismatic halos round them, like so many sickly moons, and the intermediate bit of road was fitfully lighted by the lantern carried by her maid, which shone in the dark puddles and glistening wet herbage. But Mrs. Stone was scarcely conscious where she was, as she picked her way lightly from one bit of solid path to another; her mind was so full that she might have been in Regent Street, or on a Swiss mountain. Frank! was it a diabolical suggestion, or a revelation from heaven?
All was quiet in the White House when its mistress got in. It was ten o’clock, and the doves were in their nests, which, to be sure, is but an ornamental way of saying that all the girls had gone to bed. The light burned low in the hall, as it burned all night, for Miss Southwood thought light was “a protection” to a lonely house; and the open door of the drawing-room, in which it was the custom of the ladies to sit with their pupils after tea, showed something of the disorderly look of a room deserted for the night, notwithstanding the tidiness with which all the little work-baskets were put out of the way. Besides that open door, however, was another still shining with firelight and lamplight, where a little supper-tray had just been placed on the table, and a pretty silver cover and crystal decanter, not to speak of a delicate fragrance of cooking, showed that the mistress of the house was pleasantly provided for. No mystery was made of this little supper, which everybody knew was Mrs. Stone’s favorite meal; but all the girls had a curiosity about it, and the governesses felt themselves injured that they were not privileged to share its delights. Mrs. Stone, however, stoutly defended her privacy at this hour of repose. She sat down with a sigh of relief, opposite to her sister, who presided at the little white-covered table.