whole fact to the
daughter with telegrammic rapidity and brevity, and then to enrich the
first-outline with innumerable details, while they both remained at the
window, and Mrs. March said at two-minutely intervals, with no sense of
iteration for either of them, "I told her to come in the morning, if she
felt like it, and I know she will. But if she doesn't, I shall say there
is nothing in fate, or Providence either. At any rate I'm going to stay
here and keep longing for her, and we'll see whether there's anything in
that silly theory of your father's. I don't believe there is," she said,
to be on the safe side.

Even when she saw Agatha Triscoe enter the park gate on Rutherford Place,
she saved herself from disappointment by declaring that she was not
coming across to their house. As the girl persisted in coming and coming,
and at last came so near that she caught sight of Mrs. March at the
window and nodded, the mother turned ungratefully upon her daughter, and
drove her away to her own room, so that no society detail should hinder
the divine chance. She went to the door herself when Agatha rang, and
then she was going to open the way into the parlor where March was still
closeted with Burnamy, and pretend that she had not known they were
there. But a soberer second thought than this prevailed, and she told the
girl who it was that was within and explained the accident of his
presence. "I think," she said nobly, "that you ought to have the chance
of going away if you don't wish to meet him."

The girl, with that heroic precipitation which Mrs. March had noted in
her from the first with regard to what she wanted to do, when Burnamy was
in question, answered, "But I do wish to meet him, Mrs. March."

While they stood looking at each other, March came out to ask his wife if
she would see Burnamy, and she permitted herself so much stratagem as to
substitute Agatha, after catching her husband aside and subduing his
proposed greeting of the girl to a hasty handshake.

Half an hour later she thought it time to join the young people, urged
largely by the frantic interest of her daughter. But she returned from
the half-open door without entering. "I couldn't bring myself to break in
on the poor things. They are standing at the window together looking over
at St. George's."

Bella silently clasped her hands. March gave cynical laugh, and said,
"Well we are in for it, my dear." Then he added, "I hope they'll take us
with t