The girls skipped lightly away, and Matty fidgeted and tossed in her small hot bed.

The house was intensely quiet.  Mrs. Bell was away, having taken advantage of a proffered lift from a neighbor to drive into the country to purchase some plums.  Matty thought how intolerably dull her evening would be.  She reflected on the pleasures of the Jenkinses’ tea-party; she thought it would be nice, more than nice, to shake hands again with Mr. Gus.  Why shouldn’t she go?  What was to prevent her?  Only her mother’s whim.  Only the doctor’s orders.  But both doctor and mother were now far away.  She would go, she would defy them both.

Slipping out of bed she flew across the room and drew the bolt of the door.  Then she began to dress in quick and nervous haste.  She put on her daintiest shoes, and open-work stockings.  She arranged her limp hair with care, and finally she donned the gorgeous shot-silk.

The few days in bed had taken away some of her burnt appearance, and slightly moderated her high color.  She looked really almost nice as she skipped to the door, and showed herself to her astonished sisters.

“I’m coming, too,” she said.

“Then you are cured,” said Alice.  “I’m glad of it, I’m sure.  What did I say, Sophy, when I was coming in.”

“You said if anyone could mend up Matty it would be Gus,” retorted Sophy.

That fickle Matty blushed.  It was a way she had.

CHAPTER XXIV.

EVENTS MOVE APACE.

Mrs. Bell was very successful in her purchase of plums.  In her way she was a notable housewife, and she returned home about eight o’clock that evening with a large basket of greengages, which were all to be boiled down for preserving the following day.

As soon as she entered the house the maid came to meet her.

“You take these carefully down and put them in the larder, Hannah,” said her mistress.  “Be careful you don’t knock any of them, or the bloom will go off.  Why what’s the matter, girl?  Is Miss Matty worse?”

“Lor, no, ma’am.  Miss Matty is up, and out a-pleasuring, ma’am.  But if you please, there’s a visitor in the drawing-room who would like to have a word with you the minute you come in.”

“A visitor?”

Mrs Bell felt her heart beat.  The Northbury people did not stand on ceremony with each other, nor wait in each other’s drawing-rooms, for the return of an absent hostess.  A wild idea came across Mrs. Bell’s brain.  Could Captain Bertram have quarrelled with Beatrice, and come back to Matty, his first and only true love.

“A visitor?  Male or female?” she inquired of the girl.

“A lady, ma’am.  Dressed most elegant.”

“Dear, dear, dear!  Then I suppose I must see her, and I so dead beat!  She didn’t give her name, did she, Hannah?”

“No, ma’am.  But she have been a-setting in the drawing-room for over an hour.”