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.




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