When he arrived in August at Aunt Elizabeth's he was astonished at the change in Amy. She looked really very young as she came to meet him, and Aunt Elizabeth's house was a perfect setting for her charms. Murray was very fond of Aunt Elizabeth's house. It was an ancient, stately edifice, and within there were the gold-framed portraits of men and women with noses like Amy's and Aunt Elizabeth's.
Murray had missed Amy very much and he told her so.
"It was a point of honor for me to ask Anne again. But when I thought I was going to lose you I learned that my life would be empty without you."
He really believed what he was telling her. If Amy did not believe it she made no sign. She was getting much more than she expected, and she accepted him graciously and elegantly, as became a daughter of the Merrymans.
It was when he told Anne of his engagement to Amy that Murray again offered her a home. "There will always be a place for Amy's sisters, Anne."
"You are very good, Murray--but I can't."
She had said the same thing to Maxwell, who had come hot-footed to tell her that her letter had made no difference in his feeling for her.
"How could you think it, Anne? My darling, you are making a mountain of a molehill!"
She had been tremulous but firm. "I've got to have my--self-respect, Max."
Because he understood men he understood her. And when he had left her he had said to himself with long-drawn breath, "She's a corking kid."
And this time there had been no laughter in his eyes.
All that winter Anne worked, a little striving creature, with her head held high!
Maxwell was in town, for Congress had convened. But he had not come to see her. Now and then when there was a night session she went up to the House and sat far back in the Gallery, where, unperceived, she could listen to her lover's voice. Then she would steal away, a little ghost, down the shadowy stairway; but there were no games now with Lafayette!
Amy and Murray were to be married in June. They had enjoyed a dignified and leisurely engagement, and Amy had bloomed in the sunshine of Murray's approbation. Anne's salary had helped a great deal in getting the trousseau together. Most of the salary, indeed, had been spent for that. The table was, as usual, meagre, but Anne had not seemed to care.