Darling! now that she was alone she felt the hot blush come up enveloping her from head to foot--was it Fred Dirom who had called her that, a man, a stranger! A sudden fright and panic seized her. His darling! what did that mean? To what had she bound herself? She could not be his darling without something in return. Effie paused half-way across the garden with a sudden impulse to run after him, to tell him it was a mistake, that he must not think--But then she remembered that she had already told him that he must not think--and that he had said no, oh no, but that she was his darling. A confused sense that a great deal had happened to her, though she scarcely knew how, and that she had done something which she did not understand, without meaning it, without desiring it, came over her like a gust of the wind which suddenly seemed to have become chill, and blew straight upon her out of the colourless sky which was all white and black with its flying clouds. She stood still to think, but she could not think: her thoughts began to hurry like the wind, flying across the surface of her mind, leaving no trace. There were lights in the windows of the drawing-room, and Effie could hear through the stillness the voice of her stepmother running on in her usual strain, and little Rory shouting and driving his coach in the big easy-chair. She could not bear to go into the lighted room, to expose her agitated countenance to the comments which she knew would attend her, the questions, where she had been, and why she was so late? Effie had not a suspicion that her coming was eagerly looked for, and that Mrs. Ogilvie was waiting with congratulations; but she could not meet any eye with her story written so clearly in her face. She hurried up to her own room, and there sat in the dark pondering and wondering. “Think of me a little.” Oh! should she ever be able to think of anything else all her life? CHAPTER XIV. Effie came down to dinner late--with eyes that betrayed themselves by unusual shining, and a colour that wavered from red to pale. She had put on her white frock hurriedly, forgetting her usual little ornaments in the confusion of her mind. To her astonishment Mrs. Ogilvie, who was waiting at the drawing-room door looking out for her, instead of the word of reproof which her lateness generally called forth, met her with a beaming countenance. “Well, Miss Effie!” she said, “so you’re too grand to mind that it’s dinner-time. I suppose you’ve just had your little head turned with flattery and nonsense.” And to the consternation of her stepdaughter, Mrs. Ogilvie took her by the shoulders and gave her a hearty kiss upon her cheek. “I am just as glad as if I had come into a fortune,” she said. Mr. Ogilvie added a “humph!” as he moved on to the dining-room. And he shot a glance which was not an angry glance (as it generally was when he was kept waiting for his dinner) at his child.