"though it would be a dreadful loss--to Laurel Spring--to us all--if you
went."
"Do I look so VERY bad, doctor?" she said, with a half-mischievous,
half-pathetic smile.
The doctor thought her upturned face very adorable, but restrained his
feelings heroically, and contented himself with replying to the pathetic
half of her smile. "You look as if you had been suffering," he said
gravely, "and I never saw you look so before. You seem as if you had
experienced some great shock. Do you know," he went on, in a lower tone
and with a half-embarrassed smile, "that when I saw you just now in the
garden, you looked as I imagined you might have looked in the first days
of your widowhood--when your husband's death was fresh in your heart."
A strange expression crossed her face. Her eyelids dropped instantly,
and with both hands she caught up her frilled apron as if to meet
them and covered her face. A little shudder seemed to pass over
her shoulders, and then a cry that ended in an uncontrollable and
half-hysterical laugh followed from the depths of that apron, until
shaking her sides, and with her head still enveloped in its covering,
she fairly ran into the inner room and closed the door behind her.
Amazed, shocked, and at first indignant, Dr. Blair remained fixed to
the spot. Then his indignation gave way to a burning mortification as he
recalled his speech. He had made a frightful faux pas! He had been fool
enough to try to recall the most sacred memories of that dead husband
he was trying to succeed--and her quick woman's wit had detected his
ridiculous stupidity. Her laugh was hysterical--but that was only
natural in her mixed emotions. He mounted his horse in confusion and
rode away.
For a few days he avoided the house. But when he next saw her she had
a charming smile of greeting and an air of entire obliviousness of his
past blunder. She said she was better. She had taken his advice and
was giving herself some relaxation from business. She had been riding
again--oh, so far! Alone?--of course; she was always alone--else what
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