Mrs. Erveng had spent part of the day on the beach, and had come to the
house about an hour before to take her afternoon nap. Now we heard her
voice from the floor above us. "Hilliard! Hilliard, my son!" she called;
there was something in her voice--a sort of tenderness--that I had never
noticed before. "Come here to me; come!"
And he went, without a glance at me, lifting his feet heavily from step
to step, with drooping head and a shamed, miserable expression on his
pale face.
In about an hour's time the storm was all over, and that afternoon we
had a gorgeous sunset; but Mr. Erveng and I were the only ones who sat
on the piazza to enjoy it. Neither Mrs. Erveng nor Hilliard appeared
again that day. Mr. Erveng took me for a walk along the beach, and did
his best to entertain me: but I had a feeling that I was in the
way--that he would rather have been upstairs with his wife and son,
or that perhaps if I had not been there they would have come down.
I thought of them all at home,--Phil and Fee with their fun and merry
speeches, and Jack, and the little ones, and Nora; there is always
something or other going on, and I would have given almost anything to
be back once more among them.
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