At last the hour of starting came. Clara seemed afraid to trust herself even to look at me now. She hurriedly drew down her veil the moment the carriage was announced. My father shook hands with me rather coldly. I had hoped he would have said something at parting; but he only bade me farewell in the simplest and shortest manner. I had rather he would have spoken to me in anger than restrained himself as he did, to what the commonest forms of courtesy required. There was but one more slight, after this, that he could cast on me; and he did not spare it. While my sister was taking leave of me, he waited at the door of the room to lead her downstairs, as if he knew by intuition that this was the last little parting attention which I had hoped to show her myself.
Clara whispered (in such low, trembling tones that I could hardly hear her):
“Think of what you promised in your study, Basil, whenever you think of me : I will write often.”
As she raised her veil for a moment, and kissed me, I felt on my own cheek the tears that were falling fast over hers. I followed her and my father downstairs. When they reached the street, she gave me her hand—it was cold and powerless. I knew that the fortitude she had promised to show, was giving way, in spite of all her efforts to preserve it; so I let her hurry into the carriage without detaining her by any last words. The next instant she and my father were driven rapidly from the door.
When I reentered the house, my watch showed me that I had still an hour to wait, before it was time to go to North Villa.
Between the different emotions produced by my impressions of the scene I had just passed through, and my anticipations of the scene that