"
"Are you telling the truth now, Amey? Look at me and repeat that," he
interrupted quickly.
I wished to be very brave, and turned my eyes full upon him; he took
my chin in his large, warm palm and looked steadily into my face for a
moment. I was conquered, and he saw it; he stooped and kissed me, and
we both laughed as I said
"Well; you never _said_ you were my friend."
He arose, and taking me by the hand, we strolled over the lawn and
passed into the library together.
Ernest Dalton was nearly twenty-five years my senior!
CHAPTER III.
It is now an old and respected adage that "coming events cast their
shadows before," and had I only been at all alive to the growing
changes in the routine of our daily life, I might easily have detected
the outline of some hovering shadow which was heralding the advent of
some strange, and hitherto undreamt of interruption, into the
questionably peaceful monotony of my early career.
One fine August morning, some weeks after my tragic interview with Mr.
Dalton, I sat on the step of the outer kitchen stairway, which led
into an artistically cultivated vegetable patch at the rear of the
house, absorbed in the intensely interesting occupation of cutting
some elegantly-coloured ladies out of a superannuated fashion-plate.
On the step above me was my garden hat, inverted, into which I
deposited my paper "swells" according as I trimmed them: on the step
below me sat old Hannah, scraping some new potatoes, according to her
established principles of economy.
Pages:
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58