"
"I think your surprises are always happy, Mrs. Macon."
"As are your remarks, Sara. Well, come, Madame Grandet is below."
They descended to the beautiful drawing-room, where, in the softened
light, Sara was conscious of several figures; the madame, lovely in a
Frenchy toilet, with a dash of scarlet here and there, rose to greet
them, while the little group of black coats just beyond separated and
turned, resolving itself into her host, Professor Grandet, and--Robert
Glendenning!
The last named came forward with an eager movement, and Sara's heart
stood still a minute, then plunged on with rapid beats, as he took her
hand and bent over it with an earnest greeting. He looked well, as she
quickly observed, having broadened into proportions better suited to his
height, and his eyes seemed more brilliant than ever as they met her
own.
"This is my surprise, Sara," laughed Mrs. Macon; "and you know,"
mischievously, "they are always happy ones. I think you have remarked it
yourself."
But Sara only answered by a look: her words did not come readily just
then.
"He have come last night," said the madame, beaming upon her nephew,
"so that it was to all of us a surprise, for we have not expect him."
"Indeed! As if you could think, Aunt Felicie, that I would eat my
Thanksgiving turkey in a boarding-house, when"--
"Ah! but that is what you would then do, if our friends had not so
kindly invite us here, Robare; are not your uncle and myself also in a
boarding-house?" a reply which rather nonplussed the young man for a
moment.
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