Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/39

 was a very pretty girl, dressed in half-mourning, and the white-dotted black muslin she wore gave great value to her almost startlingly fair skin, turquoise eyes, and bright auburn hair. But the eyes were clouded, and the fair skin blurred with crying. Her long white throat was uncovered, and a pulse beat in it. Her hand, with which she was nervously grasping the back of a chair near the window, was trembling. It was painful to the stranger to see the girl's embarrassment at being caught like this, on her way into the house; but she could not seem to notice her pitiful state.

Sir Ian, absorbed in his own thoughts, did not appear to see that Miss Verney was in trouble.

"Richard has been searching the house for you, and your favourite haunts out of doors," he said. "Have you been taking a walk?"

"Yes, I—have been taking a walk," she answered. "I thought, if I came back in time for tea

"Of course. Why shouldn't you take walks?" Sir Ian broke in kindly. "I have been telling Miss Ricardo about you. Miss Ricardo is—an old friend of ours, and a cousin of Mrs. Ricardo, whom you know. She has just come back from India."

The visitor put out her hand to the girl, who was looking deadly white, as if she might faint, and the slim, childish hand which responded to hers, was cold. Miss Verney did not speak, and Miss Ricardo was