Miss Annie sent a message that she was not well, and would breakfast in her own room. In the forenoon, when she came down stairs again, even Menie was startled at the change. Miss Annie’s ringlets were smoothed out and braided on her poor thin cheek--braided elaborately with a care and study worthy of something more important; her step tottered a little: when any one spoke to her, a little gush of tears came to her eyes; but, notwithstanding, there was a solemnity and importance in the hush of Miss Annie’s manner, which no one had ever seen in her before. Half-a dozen times that day she asked in a startling whisper, “Menie, when is he to come?” Poor Menie, sick at heart, could scarcely bear this slow prolonging of her pain. CHAPTER XXVI. “Aunt, he has come.” No one knows; July is out on a ramble in this pleasant heath, where she cannot lose herself; Mrs Laurie has gone out for some private errands of her own. In her first day, Menie has managed well. True, they all know that Menie has been wearied last night; that her eye looks dull and heavy; that her cheek has lost its slight bloom of colour; that she says something of a headache; but nobody knows that headache has come to be with Menie Laurie, as with many another, only a softer word for heartache--no one suspects that the quiet heart, which feared no evil when this spring began, is now a battle-ground and field of contest, and that sometimes, when she sits quiet in outward seeming, she could leap up with a start and scream, and feels as if madness would come to her underneath their unsuspicious eyes. “Aunt, he has come.” Miss Annie Laurie is very nervous; she has to be supported on Menie’s arm as they go down stairs. “You will make it all up, Menie; yes, my darling;” but Miss Annie’s head nods spasmodically, and there is a terrified troubled expression about her face, which looks so meagre in its outline under that braided hair. Slightly disturbed, something haughty, rather wondering what Menie has got to say for herself, Randall sits waiting in the drawing-room. It is no small surprise to him to see Miss Annie--especially to see her so moved and nervous; and Randall restrains, with visible displeasure, the words which rose to his lip, on Menie’s entrance, and coldly makes his bow to the lady of the house. “My dear Mr Home, I am very much grieved; I hope you are ready to make it all up,” murmurs Miss Annie; but she trembles so much that it is not easy to hear what she says, except the last words, which flush Randall’s cheek with a sudden disdainful anger. A lovers’ quarrel!--that he should be fancied capable of this.