Barbara rises, rolls up her knitting, and, going over to the fireplace, stands with one white elbow resting on the chimney-piece, and slender neck drooped, pensively gazing at the low fire.
"Do you know," she says, with a half-confused smile, that is also tinged with a little anxiety, "I have been thinking--it is the first time for three months that he has not been here at all, either in the morning, the afternoon, or the evening!" "Is it ?" say I, slightly shivering.
"I think," she says, with a rather embarrassed laugh, "that he must have heard _you_ were out, and that that was why he did not come.

You know I always tell you that he likes you best." She says it, as a joke, and yet her great eyes are looking at me with a sort of wistfulness, but neither to _them_ nor to her words can I make any answer..