A large dinner-party did not interfere with her, for even he could not expect her to appear at it, and one of these he gave during Philip's visit, for the pleasure of exhibiting such company as the M.P. for Moorworth. After dinner, Charlotte told Mary Ross to go and see Amy. Not finding her in the dressing-room, she knocked at her own door. 'Come in,' answered the low soft voice; and in the window, overhung by the long shoots of the roses, Amabel's close cap and small head were seen against the deep-blue evening sky, as she sat in the summer twilight, her little one asleep in her cot.
'Thank you for coming,' said she. 'I thought you would not mind sitting here with baby and me. I have sent Anne out walking.'
'How pretty she looks!' said Mary, stooping over the infant. 'Sleep is giving her quite a colour; and how fast she grows!'
'Poor little woman!' said Amy, sighing.
'Tired, Amy?' said Mary, sitting down, and taking up the little lambswool shoe, that Amy had been knitting.
'N--no, thank you,' said Amy, with another sigh.
'I am afraid you are. You have been walking to Alice Lamsden's again.'
'I don't think that tires me. Indeed, I believe the truth is,' and her voice sounded especially sad in the subdued tone in which she spoke, that she might not disturb the child, 'I am not so much tired with what I do, which is little enough, as of the long, long life that is before me.'
Mary's heart was full, but she did not show her thought otherwise than by a look towards the babe.
'Yes, poor little darling,' said Amabel, 'I know there is double quantity to be done for her, but I am so sorry for her, when I think she must grow up without knowing him.'
'She has you, though,' Mary could not help saying, as she felt that Amabel was superior to all save her husband.
Perhaps Amy did not hear; she went up to the cot, and went on:--'If he had but once seen her, if she had but had one kiss, one touch that I could tell her of by and by, it would not seem as if she was so very fatherless. Oh no, baby, I must wait, that you may know something about, him; for no one else can tell you so well what he was, though I can't tell much!' She presently returned to her seat. 'No, I don't believe I really wish I was like poor Alice,' said she; 'I hope not; I am sure I don't for her sake. But, Mary, I never knew till I was well again how much I had reckoned on dying when she was born. I did not think I was wishing it, but it seemed likely, and I was obliged to arrange things in case of it. Then somehow, as he came back last spring, after that sad winter, it seemed as if this spring, though he would not come back to me, I might be going to him.'