Miss Grey did not go out the next day as usual, although it was one of the soft, amber-gray, autumnal days that she loved, and the Regent's Park would have looked beautiful. She remained nearly all the morning in her own room, and avoided even Mary Blanchet. Some singular change had taken place within her, for which she could not account, otherwise than by assuming that it was begotten of the fear that she would be drawn, willingly or unwillingly, into uncongenial companionship, and must renounce her liberty. She was forced into a strange, painful, self-questioning mood. Was the whole fabric of her self-appointed happiness and independence only a dream, or, worse than a dream, an error? So soon to doubt the value and the virtue of the emancipation she had prayed for and planned for during years? Not often, perhaps, has a warm-hearted, fanciful, and spirited girl been pressed down by such peculiar relationship as hers at Keeton lately; a twice removed stepfather and stepmother, absolutely uncongenial with her, causing her soul and her youth to congeal amid dull repression. What wonder that to her all happiness seemed to consist in mere freedom and unrestricted self-development? And now--so soon--why does she begin to doubt the reality, the fulfilment of her happiness? Only because an impulsive and kindly young man, whom she saw for the first time, looked pityingly at her. This, she said to herself, is what our self-reliance and our emancipation come to after all.
It was a positive relief to her, after a futile hour or so of such questioning, when Mary Blanchet ran up stairs, and with beaming eyes begged that Minola would come and see her brother. "He is longing to see you--and you will like him--oh, you will like him, Minola dearest?" she said beseechingly.
Miss Gray went down stairs straightway, without stopping to give one touch to her hair, or one glance at the glass. The little poetess was waiting a moment, with an involuntary look toward the dressing table, as if Miss Grey must needs have some business there before she descended, but Miss Grey thought nothing of the kind, and they went down stairs together.
Minola expected, she could not tell why, to see a small and withered man in Mary Blanchet's brother. When they were entering the drawing-room, he was looking out of the window, and had his back turned, and she was surprised to see that he was decidedly tall. When he turned around she saw not only that he was handsome, but that she had recognized the fact of his being handsome before. For he was unmistakably the ideal poet of schoolgirls whom she had met at Mr. Money's house the day before.