“Were you invited yourself?” asked Roberta.

Croft wished very much that he could say that he had accidentally dropped in.  But this he could not do, and he answered that Mrs Keswick asked him to come about this time.  He did not consider it necessary to add that she had written to him at the Springs, renewing her invitation very earnestly, and mentioning that Miss March had consented to make one of the party.

This was as far as Roberta saw fit to continue the subject, on the present occasion; and she began to talk about the charming weather, and the pretty way in which the foliage was reddening on the side of a hill opposite the window.  Mr Croft was delighted to enter into this new channel of speech, and discussed with considerable fervor the attractiveness of autumn in Virginia.  Miss Annie found Letty in a very disturbed state of mind.  The dinner had been postponed until the arrival of Miss March, and now it had been still further delayed by the non-arrival of the mistress of the house, and everything was becoming dried up, and unfit to eat.  “This will never do!” exclaimed Miss Annie.  “I will go myself and look for aunt.  She must have forgotten the time of day, and everything else.”

Putting on her hat she ran out of the back door, but she did not have to go very far, for she found the old lady in the garden, earnestly regarding a bed of turnips.  “Where have you been, my dear aunt?” cried the girl.  “Miss March has been here ever so long, and Mr Croft has come, and dinner has been waiting until it has all dried up.  I was afraid that you had forgotten that company was coming to-day.”

“Forgotten!” said the old lady, glaring at the turnips.  “It isn’t an easy thing to forget.  I invited the girl, and I expected her to come, but I tell you, Annie, when I saw that carriage coming along the road, all the old feeling came back to me.  I remembered what its owners had done to me and mine, and what they are still trying to do, and I felt I could not go into the house, and give her my hand.  It would be like taking hold of a snake.”

“A snake!” cried her niece, with much warmth.  “She is a lovely woman!  And her coming shows what kindly feelings she has for you.  But, no matter what you think about it, aunt, you have asked her here, and you must come in and see her.  Dinner is waiting, and I don’t know what more to say about your absence.”

“Go in and have dinner,” said Mrs Keswick.

“Don’t wait for me.  I’ll come in and see her after a while; but I haven’t yet got to the point of sitting down to the table and eating with her.”

“Oh, aunt!” exclaimed Annie, “you ought never to have asked her if you are going to treat her in this way!  And what am I to say to her?  What excuse am I to make?  Are you not sick?  Isn’t something the matter with you?”

“You can tell them I’m flustrated,” said the old lady, “and that is all that’s the matter with me.  But I’m not coming in to dinner, and there is no use of saying anything more about it.”