"To see _you!_ Did he come to take you sleigh-riding again?"
"He said nothing about sleigh-riding."
"The snow is all slush down in the city. What did he want to see you for, then?" said Madge, turning round upon her sister, while at the same time she was endeavouring to extricate her head from her bonnet, which was caught upon a pin.
"He had something to say to me," Lois answered, trembling with an odd sort of excitement.
"What?--Lois, not _that?_" cried Madge, stopping with her bonnet only half off her head. But Lois nodded; and Madge dropped herself into the nearest chair, making no further effort as regarded the bonnet.
"Lois!--What did you say to him?"
"What could I say to him?"
"Why, two or three things, _I_ should think. If it was I, I should think so."
"There can be but one answer to such a question. It must be yes or no."
"I am sure that"s two to choose from. Have you gone and said yes to that man?"
"Don"t you like him?" said Lois, with a furtive smile, glancing up at her sister now from under lowered eyelids.
"Like him! I never saw the man yet, that I liked as well as my liberty."
"Liberty!"
"Yes. Have you forgotten already what that means? O Lois! have you said yes to that man? Why, I am always afraid of him, every time I see him."
"_Afraid_ of him?"
"Yes. I get over it after he has been in the room a while; but the next time I see him it comes back. O Lois! are you going to let him have you?"
"Madge, you are talking most dreadful nonsense. You never were afraid of anybody in your life; and of him least of all."
"Fact, though," said Madge, beginning at her bonnet again. "It"s the way his head is set on his shoulders, I suppose. If I had known what was happening, while I was listening to Mme. Cisco"s screeching!"--
"You couldn"t have helped it."
"And now, now, actually you belong to somebody else! Lois, when are you going to be married?"
"I don"t know."
"Not for a great while? Not _soon_, at any rate?"
"I don"t know. Mr. Dillwyn wishes--"
"And are you going to do everything he wishes?"
"As far as I can," said Lois, with again a rosy smile and glance.
"There"s the call to luncheon!" said Madge. "People must eat, if they"re ever so happy or ever so unhappy. It is one of the disgusting things about human nature. I just wish he wasn"t going to be here.
Well--come along!"
Madge went ahead till she reached the drawing-room door; there she suddenly paused, waved herself to one side, and let Lois go in before her. Lois was promptly wrapped in Mrs. Wishart"s arms, and had to endure a most warm and heartfelt embracing and congratulating. The lady was delighted. Meanwhile Madge found herself shaking hands with Philip.
"You know all about it?" he said, looking hard at her, and holding her hand fast.
"If you mean what Lois has told me--"
"Are not you going to wish me joy?"
"There is no occasion--for anybody who has got Lois," said Madge. And then she choked, pulled her hand away, and broke down. And when Lois got free from Mrs. Wishart, she saw Madge sitting with her head in her hands, and Mr. Dillwyn bending over her. Lois came swiftly behind and put both arms softly around her sister.
"It"s no use!" said Madge, sobbing and yet defiant. "He has got you, and I haven"t got you any longer. Let me alone--I am not going to be a fool, but to be asked to wish him joy is too much." And she broke away and ran off.
Lois could have followed her with all her heart; but she had herself habitually under better control than Madge, and knew with fine instinct what was due to others. Her eyes glistened; nevertheless her bearing was quiet and undisturbed; and a second time to-day Mr. Dillwyn was charmed with the grace of her manner. I must add that Madge presently made her appearance again, and was soon as gay as usual; her lucubrations even going so far before the end of luncheon as to wonder _where_ Lois would hold her wedding. Will she fetch all the folks down here? thought Madge. Or will everybody go to Shampuashuh?
With the decision, however, the reader need not be troubled.
CHAPTER XLIX.
ON THE Pa.s.s.
Only one incident more need be told. It is the last point in my story.
The intermediate days and months must be pa.s.sed over, and we skip the interval to the summer and June. It is now the middle of June. Mr.
Dillwyn"s programme had been successfully carried out; and, after an easy and most festive journey from England, through France, he and Lois had come by gentle stages to Switzerland. A festive journey, yes; but the expression regards the mental progress rather than the apparent.
Mr. Dillwyn, being an old traveller, took things with the calm habit of use and wont; and Lois, new as all was to her, made no more fussy demonstration than he did. All the more delicious to him, and satisfactory, were the sparkles in her eyes and the flushes on her cheeks, which constantly witnessed to her pure delight or interest in something. All the more happily he felt the grasp of her hand sometimes when she did not speak; or listened to the low accents of rapture when she saw something that deserved them; or to her merry soft laugh at something that touched her sense of fun. For he found Lois had a great sense of fun. She was altogether of the most buoyant, happy, and enjoying nature possible. No one could be a better traveller. She ignored discomforts (truly there had not been much in that line), and she laughed at disappointments; and travellers must meet disappointments now and then. So Mr. Dillwyn had found the journey giving him all he had promised himself; and to Lois it gave--well Lois"s dreams had never promised her the quarter.
So it had come to be the middle of June, and they were in Switzerland.
And this day, the sixteenth, found them in a little wayside inn near the top of a pa.s.s, snowed up. So far they had come, the last mile or two through a heavy storm; and then the snow clouds had descended so low and so thick, and gave forth their treasures of snow-flakes so confusedly and incessantly, that going on was not to be thought of.
They were sheltered in the little inn; and that is nearly all you could say of it, for the accommodations were of the smallest and simplest.
Travellers were not apt to stop at that little hostelry for more than a pa.s.sing refreshment; and even so, it was too early in the season for many travellers to be expected. So there were Philip and his wife now, making the best of things. Mr. Dillwyn was coaxing the little fire to burn, which had been hastily made on their arrival; but Lois sat at one of the windows looking out, and every now and then proclaiming her enjoyment by the tone in which some innocent remark came from her lips.
"It is raining now, Philip."
"What do you see in the rain?"
"Nothing whatever, at this minute; but a little while ago there was a kind of drawing aside of the thick curtain of falling snow, and I had a view of some terribly grand rocks, and one glimpse of a most wonderful distance."
"Vague distance?" said Philip, laughing. "That sounds like looking off into s.p.a.ce."
"Well, it was. Like chaos, and order struggling out of its awful beginnings."