hours flew winged as we talked; and warmed into forgetfulness, all the sweet side of me—­if such there be—­came out and sunned itself.  And then I would remember me and needs must wear the ice again, as some dancing, glancing, limpid brook should sheathe itself in impenetrable crystals.  And all those hours—­for seldom were the moments when, against my will I was compelled to gladness—­I became more and more alone; for Effie being the soul of the festivities,—­since Mary Strathsay oftenest stood cold and proudly by, wax-white and like a statue on the wall,—­and all the world looking on at what they deemed to be no less than Angus’s courtship, I saw little of her except I rose on my arm to watch her smiling sleep deep in the night.  And she was heartsome as the lark’s song up the blue lift, and of late was never to be found in those two hours when my mother kept her room at mid-day, and was over-fond of long afternoon strolls down the river-bank or away in the woods by herself.  Once I fancied to see another walking with her there out in the hay-fields beyond, walking with her in the sunshine, bending above her, perhaps an arm about her, but the leafy shadows trembled between us and darkened them out of sight.  And something possessed me to think that the dear girl cared for my Angus.  Had I been ever so ready to believe my own heart’s desire, how could I but stifle it at that?  It seemed as if the iron spikes of trouble were thrust from solid bars of fate woven this way and that across me, till with the last and newest complication I grew to knowing no more where to turn than the toad beneath the harrow.

So the weeks went by.  Angus had gone home on his affairs,—­for he had long left the navy,—­but was presently to return to us.  It was the sweet September weather:  mild the mellow sunshine,—­but dour the days to me!

There was company in the house that evening, and I went down another way; for the sound of their lilting and laughing was but din in my ears.  I passed Mary Strathsay, as I left my room; she had escaped a moment from below, had set the casement wide in the upper hall, and was walking feverishly to and fro, her arms folded, her dress blowing about her:  she’ll often do the same in her white wrapper now, at dead of dark in any stormy night:  she could not find sufficient air to breathe, and something set her heart on fire, some influence oppressed her with unrest and longing, some instinct, some unconscious prescience, made her all astir.  I passed her and went down, and I hid myself in the arbor, quite overgrown with wild, rank vines of late summer, and listened to a little night-bird pouring out his complaining heart.

While I sat, I heard the muffled sound of horses’ feet prancing in the flagged court-yard,—­for the house fronted on the street, one end overhanging the river, the back and the north side lost in the gardens that stretched up to Margray’s grounds one way and down to the water’s brink the other, so the stroke of their impatient hoofs reached me but faintly; yet I knew ’twas Angus and Mr. March of the Hill, whom Angus had written us he was to visit.  And then the voices within shook into a chorus of happy welcome, the strain of one who sang came fuller on the breeze, the lights seemed to burn clearer, the very flowers of the garden blew a sweeter breath about me.