My Lady. 29

 

sympathise. <A feeling as of great longing filled
me, and I felt the warm blood rush to my face, but
I said nothing. The lady’s eyes met mine, and she
smiled and said, “We will try it. If you will be
about here to-morrow afternoon, I will bring you a
picture of Noah and the rainbow, and we will see
about the reading.”

Then we parted. I remembered my bow at the
last moment, and made it in my best style; and
then, as it was getting late, I called Monna, and
went home with the glow still at my heart, and the
hope of seeing the lady again to-morrow making
life look strangely bright.

I would not tell Nance what had happened. I
took a secret pleasure in the thought that she was
supposing me to be still on the look-out for the
lady, while all the time I had the proud conscious-
ness of having held a long conversation with her—
longer, I was sure, than Nance had ever had with
any lady. Old Nance looked at me now and then
across the tea-table, perhaps because I looked un-
usually bright ; but she said nothing, and I kept
my secret. As I lay in bed, I went over and over
again the incidents of that mecting, and planned
long future conversations, in which I told the lady
all those childish hopes and fears and troubles
that had hitherto found no listener.