The servant who summoned Mabel to supper brought down word that she
was not feeling well, and did not wish any.
"Not well! Bless me!" exclaimed Mrs. Sutton, starting up. "Rosa,
love, excuse me for three seconds, please. I must see what is the
matter. I do hope there is no bad news from--" (arrested by the
recollection that there were servants in the room, she substituted
for the name upon her lips)--"in her letters."
"I don't think she's much sick ma'am," said the maid. "She is
a-settin' in the window."
"Where I left her with her letters, an hour and more ago," observed
Rosa. "Don't hurry back if she needs you, Aunt Rachel. I will make
myself at home; shall not mind eating alone for once."
Not withstanding the array of dainties before her, she only nibbled
the edge of a cream biscuit with her little white teeth, and
crumbled the rest of it upon her plate in listlessness or profound
and active reverie, while the hostess was away. She, too, had her
conjectures and her anxieties--a knotty problem to work out, and the
longer she pondered the more confident was she that she had grasped
at least one filament of the clue leading to elucidation.
Mabel had not stirred from her place--sat yet with her brother's
letter in her lap, her hands lying heavily upon it, although her
muslin dress was ghostly in the stream of moonlight flowing across
the chamber. She had wept her eyes dry, and her voice was
monotonous, but unfaltering.
"I am not really sick, aunt, but I have no appetite, and having a
great deal to think of, I preferred staying here to going to the
table," was her answer to Mrs Sutton's inquiries.
"Your hands are cold and lifeless as clay, my child. What is the
matter? It is not like you to be moping up here, alone in the dark."
"Won't you leave me to myself for a while, and keep Rosa
down-stairs?" asked Mabel, more patiently than peevishly. "Before
bed-time I will see you in your room, and we can talk of what has
disturbed me."
"My daughter," murmured the gentle-hearted chaperone, trying to draw
the erect head to her shoulder, as she stood by her niece.
Mabel resisted the kindly force.
"No, no, aunt. I cannot bear that yet. I have just begun to think
connectedly, and petting would unnerve me."
This was strange talk from the frank-hearted child she had reared
from babyhood, and while she desisted from further attempts at
consolation, Aunt Rachel took a very sober visage back to the
supper-room with her, and as little appetite as Rosa had manifested.
The meal was quickly over, and by way of obeying the second part of
Mabel's behest, the innocent diplomatist begged Rosa to go to the
piano.