Threads gathered up

“Rupert, have you seen my orchids since they bloomed?” Lillian asked of her uncle’s ward, as the family were leaving the dining-room.

“No. Are you indulging in orchids, Lillian?”

“Yes; I am wild over them. Uncle Will gave me several varieties on my last birthday, and they are just doing their best for me now. Come into the conservatory and let me show them to you.”

“All right. I have a fancy for the pretty things, too,” replied the young man as he followed the fair girl toward the hot-house, and thinking, as he did so, how lovely and graceful the girl was in her perfectly fitting morning robe of garnet cashmere trimmed with swansdown, and which harmonized delightfully with her brilliant complexion.

She took him to a sunny corner of the conservatory which Sir William had set apart and fitted up expressly to gratify this extravagant whim of his pretty niece, and where the young lady had really displayed much taste and appreciation of the rare things in which she was interested, both as to choice and arrangement.

They spent half an hour or more in examining the beautiful things, and Rupert became almost as enthusiastic as Lillian herself over them.

But she had no notion of allowing even her favorite flowers to monopolize all his attention. She had had a far more important object in view in bringing him there with her.

“So you are really determined on taking this American trip, Rupert?” she remarked, as they paused before a lovely arethusa in full bloom, from which she broke its fairest blossom, and, bending forward, fastened it to the lapel of his coat.

“Oh, Lillian, what a pity to break the pretty thing!” he said, regretfully.

“Not for you,” she answered, looking up at him with a smile, and flushing as she met those frank brown eyes that were regarding her with unmistakable admiration. “You would be welcome to more if you wished.”

“You are very generous,” he returned, regarding the flower thoughtfully, and wondering what made her blush so when with him. “But about my trip. Yes, I have decided that I will go.”

“When?”

“I sail just a week from to-day. I wrote yesterday to engage my passage.”

“So soon?” Lillian cried, catching her breath, and losing all her brilliant color.

“Yes; if I am to join that excursion to the Pacific coast on the 12th of next month, I must be off.”

“The house will seem like a convent when you are gone; you are the life and soul of everything here,” said the girl, tears starting to her eyes.

“Thank you; I had no idea that I was of so much importance,” he returned, lightly.

“Didn’t you?” she asked, sweeping him a coy look from beneath her long, dark lashes. “You have something to learn yet, then. But how long will you be away? Surely not six months, as Uncle Will said this morning.”

“Yes, I think so. I do not wish to hurry, and I mean to get a pretty thorough idea of what the United States are like. I think I shall be away until July or August.”

“Oh, Rupert, don’t! It will be too lonely and wretched for anything without you!” Lillian burst forth, impetuously, and in an agitated voice.

“Why, Lillian!” he exclaimed, astonished, and bestowing a puzzled look upon her downcast, agitated countenance; “will you miss me like that?”

“Did you expect you could go away for so long and not be missed?” she asked, tremulously.

“I confess I had not thought much about it,” he replied, gravely; “but I suppose, as we have all been brought up together, and had so much in common, that no one of us could go away without being missed. However, you will have Percy.”

“But Percy is soon to go to the Grange, and will be so taken up with his interests there that we shall see but very little of him. Oh, Rupert, I wish there was no such place as America!” Lillian concluded, with quivering lips.

“Bless you, little sister! I never thought that my going away would upset you like this,” Rupert said, laying his hand lightly on her shoulder, and really moved to see how she was taking it to heart.

“Little sister!” she repeated, flushing crimson, and drawing her figure to its full height.

She was very handsome at that moment, and Rupert wondered that he had not noticed of late how exceedingly lovely she had grown, while there was a nameless something in her expressive face, and even in her attitude, that thrilled him strangely.

“Does that offend your young ladyship?” he questioned, laughing. “You are not so little after all, and I was unfortunate in my choice of an adjective; but you were such a tiny midget when I came here, eight years ago, that I have always regarded you as very petite.”

“But I am not—your sister; we are not related at all,” she murmured.

He started, and bent a puzzled look upon her. She was standing before him, with half-averted face, her darkly fringed lids almost touching her cheeks, her bosom heaving with the heavy pulsations of her heart.

“True,” he returned, in a constrained tone, “and you must pardon me if I have presumed too far; but you must understand, Lillian, that it has become a natural consequence for me to regard you almost in that light, since one cannot live so many years in a family without becoming strongly attached to its members. I had flattered myself, too, that I had won at least a little corner in the hearts of my friends here.”

“You have! you have! Oh, Rupert, I did not mean anything like that!” Lillian cried, in a distressed tone, and with visible agitation.

“Then what did you mean? I do not understand you,” the young man asked, and leaned forward to look into her downcast face.

Lillian lifted her great dark eyes to his for an instant, and his heart gave a startled bound at what he read in their dusky depths. Then the rich blood rushed in a crimson flood to her very brow, dyeing even her white neck with its rosy hue.

At that moment a door of the conservatory opened and shut, and the girl started guiltily from his side.

“There comes the gardener,” she said, with evident confusion, “and I must speak to him.”

She darted away, speeding swiftly down the walk, leaving the young man speechless and amazed at the discovery that he had made; for he had read in the girl’s beautiful face and speaking glance the confession of her love for him.

“Whew!” he ejaculated, recovering himself after a moment; “I never dreamed of anything like that! What in the world have I been thinking of not to realize before that she had grown a young lady, and a very beautiful one, too? I wonder if I could—can it be possible that I have—bah! I never have meant to do any mischief in that way. Perhaps I’ll—no. I’ll wait until I get back from my trip. It is very awkward. I wish it had not happened just now,” he soliloquized, brokenly.

He stood gazing out of the conservatory in an absent way for several minutes, his face very grave, an anxious look in his fine eyes; but, as he heard Lillian and the gardener approaching, he passed around to another path and so out of the hot-house, and thus avoided meeting them; he did not feel that he could encounter the young girl again just then. He wished to get away by himself and think over the revelation he had just received.

The thought of love in connection with Lillian Linton had never entered his mind until now.

She had simply been a genial playmate during the earlier years of his life, sharing many of his own and Percy’s sports, and a pleasant companion when, of late, he had returned to Heathdale from college to spend his vacations.

He had scarcely realized—as his own words betrayed—that she had reached woman’s estate. He knew she was very pretty, very bright and sparkling; he knew that Heathdale would not seem like home to him without her, and he enjoyed her society as he would that of a dear sister; but as for anything nearer, as a wife, he had never thought of her.

More and more he regretted that little episode in the conservatory. The memory of it embarrassed him, try hard as he would to overcome it, and he found himself avoiding the possibility of a tête-à-tête with Lillian again, while he began to grow anxious for the day of his departure, that he might escape the unnatural constraint that seemed to have fallen upon him.

Sir William wondered what had come over him during the next few days, but attributed his unusual gravity to his regret at the approaching separation.

Lady Linton knew from Lillian’s manner, that something had gone wrong; but, although she questioned her, she could learn nothing satisfactory, and she became more and more unreconciled over Rupert’s projected tour.

If she could only have succeeded in arranging an engagement between him and Lillian before he left, she would have felt quite safe in letting him go; he would have stood committed then, and it would have been a safeguard during his absence.

She did everything in her power to make it pleasant for him during the little time that remained to him at home; she meant that he should at least take away agreeable memories with him, and he assured her again and again that he should never forget her kindness to him, for all that she was doing for him.

“You have been like a mother to me, Lady Linton, ever since I came to Heathdale,” he said, gratefully, to her one day when she was arranging something for his comfort during the voyage.

“And you have been like a son to me, my dear boy,” she returned, with a fond glance. “I shall always regard you as such. I am sure I do not know what we are going to do without you.”

“Six months will soon pass,” Rupert said, trying to speak lightly.

“They may to you, who will be traveling constantly, but they will be long to us who wait at home. Poor Lillian! I set her to marking some handkerchiefs for you this morning, but she broke down and cried so over her work that she had to give it up.”

“I am afraid I am an unworthy subject for so much regret,” Rupert said, with a sigh.

Lillian’s regard for him, her pale, sad face, and hollow eyes, were a great burden on his heart.

The day of his departure arrived, and he took an affectionate leave of his friends.

Lady Linton embraced him as fervently as if he had indeed been her son, bade him take care of himself and come safely back to them, for it would break their hearts to lose him entirely. Percy wished him every possible pleasure, and promised to write to him every week. Lillian gave him an icy cold hand at parting; there were tears on her dark lashes, and her lips quivered painfully over her farewell; but she would not allow him to kiss her in the old friendly fashion, as he used to do when he and Percy went back to school at the end of their holidays. She had vowed that their lips should never meet again until he had given her a lover’s kiss.

Rupert looked troubled at being thus repulsed. He understood the reason for it, however, and it was with a feeling of relief that he realized he was to have six months in which to make up his mind as to what his duty was toward his guardian’s niece.

Sir William accompanied him to London, thence to Liverpool, where he saw him safely on board the stanch Cunarder that was to bear him across the Atlantic, after which he returned to Heathdale, feeling as if half the sunshine had suddenly been blotted from his life. The boy was inexpressibly dear to him, and he would have been bereaved indeed if anything happened to him.