She tried to
play her hard part well; but wherever she looked,
some fresh anxiety appeared, as if every fault and
folly of those months had blossomed suddenly
within the hour. She saw Frank Evan more
sombre and more solitary than when she met him
first, and cried regretfully within herself, "How
could I so forget the truth I owed him? -- She
saw Clara West watching with eager eyes for the
coming of young Leavenworth, and sighed, -- "This
is the fruit of my wicked vanity!" She saw Aunt
Pen regarded her with an anxious face, and longed
to say, "Forgive me, for I have not been sincere!"
At last, as her trouble grew, she resolved to go
away and have a quiet "think,"--a remedy which
had served her in many a lesser perplexity; so,
stealing out, she went to a grove of cedars usually
deserted at that hour. But in ten minutes Joe
Leavenworth appeared at the door of the summer
house, and, looking in, said, with a well-acted
start of pleasure and surprise,--
"Beg pardon, I thought there was no one here,
My dear Miss Wilder, you look contemplative;
but I fancy it wouldn't do to ask the subject of
your meditations, would it?"
He paused with such an evident intention of
remaining that Debby resolved to make use of the
moment, and ease her conscience of one care that
burdened it; therefore she answered his question
with her usual directness,--
"My meditations were partly about you.
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