It was question of passing the time, that went round; for, though all their words fell dead on my ear at the moment, it was in charactery that afterward I could recall, reillume, and read; and one was for games, and one for charades, and one for another thing;—­and I sat silent and dazed through it all.  Finally they fell to travestying scenes from history, each assuming a name and supporting it by his own wits, but it all passed before my dulled senses like the phantasmagoria of a troubled dream; and that tiring, there was a kind of dissolving views managed by artful ebb and flow of light, pictures at whose ending the Rose of May was lost in Francesca, who, waxing and waning in her turn, faded into Astarte, and went out In a shudder of darkness,—­and the three were Effie.  But ere the views were done, ere those three visions, when Effie ran away to dress her part, I after her and up into our room, vaguely, but as if needs must.

“I’ve good news for you,” said she, without looking, and twisting her long, bright hair.  “I was with Angus but now in the garden.  He can bear it no longer, and he touched my brow with his lips that I promised to urge his cause; for he loves you, he loves you, Alice!  Am I not kind to think of it now?  Ah, if you knew all!”

She had already donned the gown of silvery silk and blonde, and was winding round her head the long web of lace loosened from my mother’s broidery-frame.  She turned and took me by the two shoulders, and looked into my face with eyes of azure flame.

“I am wild with gladness!” she said.  “Kiss me, girl, quick! there’s no time to spare.  Kiss me on the cheek,—­not the lip, not the lip,—­he kissed me there!  Kiss me the cheek,—­one, and the other!  So, brow, cheeks, mouth, and your kisses all have signed me with the sign of the cross.  Oh, girl, I am wild with joy!”

She spoke swift and high, held me by the two shoulders with a clasp like steel, suddenly shook me loose, and was down and away.

I followed her again, as by habit,—­but more slowly:  I was trying to distil her words.  I stood then in the door of a little ante-room opening into the drawing-room and looking on the courtyard, and gazed thence at those three pictures, as if it were all a delirament, till out of them Effie stepped in person, and danced, trilling to herself, through the groups, flashing, sparkling, flickering, and disappeared.  Oh, but Mrs. Strathsay’s eyes gleamed in a proud pleasure after her!

Hoofs were clattering again below in the yard, for Angus was to ride back with Mr. March.  Some one came my way,—­I shrank through the door-way, shivering from top to toe,—­it was Angus searching for his cap; and it was so long since I had suffered him to exchange a word with me!  I know not what change was wrought in my bewildered lineaments, what light was in my glance; but, seeing me, all that sedate sadness that weighed upon his manner fell aside, he hastily strode toward me, took my hands as he was wont, and drew me in, gazing the while down my dazzled, happy eyes till they fell.