Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: My heart felt quite light as I shook hands with her. Yes. Decidedly John was right! CHAPTER III. THE very next day I paid my visit to the Olivers. It was not without some anxiety that I did so, for many long years had passed since I had seen Annie, and the chances and changes of life are saddening things enough. A waiter (who would have been all the better for a careful toilette, to say nothing of soap and water, capital things in their way) showed me upstairs, and ushered me into a sitting-room, which was at once gaudy and uncomfortably bare. There was not even a view of the beautiful sea from the windows, to redeem the red and yellow of the wallpaper, and the violet crimson of the hangings. But, to be sure, there were two ornaments that made one forget the ugly look of things. Two fresh young faces?one, a beautiful one?lent their own charm to the surroundings. Certainly Rose Oliver was very pretty, and Jasper, though by no means handsome, was sufficiently comely, a well-set-up, manly lad. Basil was not there.
I am Miss Leslie, I said. Basil told us all about you, said Miss Rose; do sit down, please. Jasper, give Miss Leslie a chair. I sat myself down and looked at her. And I thought that her dress seemed just a little bit better, a little fresher, than her sister’s. Jasper held his tongue after the fashion of lads of his age, and balanced his own chair on two legs.
I hope your mother is better, I said.
She is always pretty much the same, poor mamma, said the pretty child; she looked even younger than her age;
she is asleep. We are always so glad when she sleeps. The general is with her now.
The general! I repeated, mystified.
Our general, said Rose with very wide open eyes (and, dear me! how very blue they were…