heightened by a blush.

To Anthony she seemed a very angel, an angel returned from the shores
of death for his adoration and delight. Oh! if things had gone the other
way--if there had been no sweet Barbara seated in that wooden chair!
The thought gripped his heart with a hand of ice; he felt as he had felt
when he looked at the window-place from the crest of Gunter's Hill. But
she _had_ come back, and he was sure that they were each other's for
life. And yet, and yet, life must end one day and then, what? Once more
that hand of ice dragged at his heart strings.

In a moment it was all over and Mr. Walrond was speaking.

"Why don't you bid Barbara good-day, Anthony?" he asked. "Don't you
think she looks well, considering? We do, better than you, in fact," he
added, glancing at his face, which had suddenly grown pale, almost grey.

"He's going to give Barbara the violets and doesn't know how to do it,"
piped the irrepressible Janey. "Anthony, why don't you ever bring _us_
violets, even when we have the whooping cough?"

"Because the smell of them is bad for delicate throats," he answered,
and without a word handed the sweet-scented flowers to Barbara.

She took them, also without a word, but not without a look, pinned a few
to her dress, and reaching a cracked vase from the mantelpiece, disposed
of the rest of them there till she could remove them to her own room.
Then Mr. Walrond began to say grace and the difficulties of that meeting
were over.