He received her with his usual gentle kindness and his sweet and thoughtful smile; assured her that he was well; exerted himself more than usual to talk, and waived away her anxious questions by extorting from her an account of her journey and her residence, of all that she had seen, and of her own feelings on returning to her country home after so long a sojourn in the splendid and beautiful metropolis. He talked more than was usual with him; and more gaily; but still Lucy was dissatisfied. The hand that had pressed hers on alighting was cold as death; the lip that had kissed her fair brow was pale and trembling; his appetite was gone, and his frequent and apparently unconscious habit of pushing away the clustering curls from his forehead proved, as plainly as words could have done, that there was pain in the throbbing temples. The pulsation was even visible; but still he denied that he was ill, and declared that her notion of his having grown thin and pale was nothing but a woman's fancy,--the fond whim of a fond sister. To escape from the subject he took her into the garden,--her own pretty flower garden, divided by a wall covered with creepers from the larger plot of ground devoted to vegetables, and bounded on one side by buildings connected with his trade, and parted on the other from a well-stored timber-yard, by a beautiful rustic screen of fir and oak and birch with the bark on, which terminating in a graceful curve at the end next the house, and at that leading to the garden in a projecting gothic porch,--partly covered by climbing plants, partly broken by tall pyramidal hollyhocks, and magnificent dahlias, and backed by a clump of tall elms, formed a most graceful veil to an unsightly object. This screen had been erected during Lucy's absence, and without her knowledge; and her brother smiling at the delight which she expressed, pointed out to her the splendid beauty of her flowers and the luxuriant profusion of their growth.