e begged that I would wait: she was
hurrying to come down.

The child! She has slept too soundly. I shall tell her how insensate
she must have been, how serenely unconscious when the flower came in
at the window.

The clock on the mantel struck seven and the half hour before Bessie
appeared. She was very pale, and her eyes looked away at my greeting.
Passively she suffered herself to be placed in a chair, and then, with
something of her own manner, she said hurriedly, "Don't think I got
your note, Charlie, last night, or I wouldn't, indeed I wouldn't, have
kept you waiting so long this morning."

"Didn't Mary bring it to you?" I asked, surprised.

"Yes: that is, she brought it up to my room, but, Charlie dear, I
wasn't there: I wasn't there all night. I did shut my door, though I
heard you calling, and after a little while I crept out into the entry
and looked over the stairs, hoping you were there still, and that I
could come back to you. But you were not there, and everything was so
still that I was sure you had gone--gone without a word. I listened
and listened, but I was too proud to go down into the parlor and see.
And yet I could not go back to my room, next Aunt Sloman's. I went
right up stairs to the blue room, and stayed there. Mary must have put
your note on my table when she came up stairs. I found it there this
morning when I went down."

"Poor darling! And what did you do all night in the blue room? I am
afraid," looking at her downcast eyes, "that you did not sleep--that
you were angry at me."

"At you? No, at myself," she said very low.

"Bessie, you know that my first and only thought was of the hurry and
worry this journey would cost you. You know that to have you with me
was something that I had scarce dared to dream."

"And therefore," with a flash of blue eyes, "for me to dare to dream
it was--" and again she hid her face.

"But, my precious, don't you know that it was for _you_ to suggest
what I wanted all the time, but thought it would be too much to ask?"
For I had discovered, of course, in my morning's work among the dead
leaves on the porch, that I had desired it from the moment I had known
of my journey--desired it without acknowledging it to myself or
presuming to plan upon it.

At this juncture breakfast was announced, and the folding doors thrown
open that led into the breakfast-parlor, disclosing Mrs. Sloman seated
by the silver urn, and a neat little table spread for three, so