Page:Aunt Phillis's Cabin.djvu/260

 lover to expect. You see that I am arrayed in a plain black silk, to show my chagrin because Mr. Johnson could not come now. Alice has decked herself so that Arthur can read her every thought at the first glance. She has on her blue barège dress, which implies her unvarying constancy. Then--"

"I did not think of that," said Alice, blushing deeply, and looking down at her dress; "I only--"

"Miss Alice," said Lydia, "I hears somethin."

"No, no," said Miss Janet, looking from the window, "there is nothing--"

"Deed the is," said Lydia. "Its Mas' Arthur's horse, I know."

Mr. Weston went out on the porch, and the ladies stood at the windows. The voices of the servants could be distinctly heard. From the nature of the sound, there was no doubt they were giving a noisy welcome to their young master.

"He is coming," said Miss Janet, much agitated; "the servants would not make that noise were he not in sight."

"I hear the horses, too," said Ellen; "we will soon see him where the road turns."

"There he comes," said Mrs. Weston. "It must be Arthur. William is with him; he took a horse for Arthur to the stage house."

The father stood looking forward, the wind gently lifting the thin white hair from his temples; his cheek flushed, his clear blue eye beaming with delight. The horseman approached. The old man could not distinguish his face, yet there was no mistaking his gay and gallant bearing. The spirited and handsome animal that bore him flew over the gravelled avenue. Only a few minutes elapsed from the time he was first seen to the moment when the father laid his head upon his son's shoulder; and while he was clasped to that youthful and manly heart experienced sensations of joy such as are not often felt here.