'Good morning, sister;—Such a famous stroll! I have been all the way to——'
'Where? good heavens! where? for such a look as that!—why, Pierre, Pierre? what ails thee? Dates, I will touch the bell presently.'
As the good servitor fumbled for a moment among the napkins, as if unwilling to stir so summarily from his accustomed duty, and not without some of a well and long-tried old domestic's vague, intermitted murmuring, at being wholly excluded from a matter of family interest; Mrs. Glendinning kept her fixed eye on Pierre, who, unmindful that the breakfast was not yet entirely ready, seating himself at the table, began helping himself—though but nervously enough—to the cream and sugar. The moment the door closed on Dates, the mother sprang to her feet, and threw her arms around her son; but in that embrace, Pierre miserably felt that their two hearts beat not together in such unison as before.
'What haggard thing possesses thee, my son? Speak, this is incomprehensible! Lucy;—fie!—not she?—no love-quarrel there;—speak, speak, my darling boy!'
'My dear sister,' began Pierre.
'Sister me not, now, Pierre;—I am thy mother.'
'Well, then, dear mother, thou art quite as incomprehensible to me as I to——'
'Talk faster, Pierre this calmness freezes me. Tell me; for, by my soul, something most wonderful must have happened to thee. Thou art my son, and I command thee. It is not Lucy; it is something else. Tell me.'
'My dear mother,' said Pierre, impulsively moving his chair backward from the table, 'if thou wouldst only believe me when I say it, I have really nothing to tell thee. Thou knowest that sometimes, when I happen to feel very foolishly studious and philosophical, I sit up late in my chamber; and then, regardless of the hour,
