"How beautiful those trees are; I mean those pines on the hill;
don't you admire them very much, Uncle John?"
"Tolerably," was the rather short answer. "I am too well used to
trees to go into the raptures of my little city niece about them;"
and all this time Margaret looked fixedly down upon the floor.
"Don't you frown so, uncle, or I will run right home to-morrow,"
said Annie, with the assurance of a privileged pet; "but I was going
to ask you about the rock just back of those pines. Do you and Aunt
Margaret still go there to see the sunset? I was thinking about you
these two past evenings, when the sunsets were so grand, and wishing
I was with you on the rock; and you were both there, weren't you?"
This time John Greylston gave no answer, but his sister said
briefly,
"No, Annie, we have not been at the rock for several evenings;" and
then a rather painful silence followed.
Annie at last spoke:
"You both, somehow, seem so changed and dull; I would just like to
know the reason. May be aunty is going to be married. Is that it,
Uncle John?"
Miss Margaret smiled, but the colour came brightly to her face.
"If this is really so, I don't wonder you are sad and grave; you,
especially, Uncle John; how lonely and wretched you would be! Oh!
would you not be very sorry if Aunt Madge should leave you, never to
come back again? Would not your heart almost break?"
John Greylston threw down his knife and fork violently upon the
table, and pushing back his chair, went from the room.
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