She herself had encountered during the evening unexpected slights
and repulses. Her hostesses had been cool, but she expected them
to be cool: they did not like her nor she them. But Judge Morris
had avoided her; the Hardages had avoided her; each member of the
Meredith family had avoided her; Isabel had avoided her; even
Harriet, when once she crossed the rooms to her, had with an
incomprehensible flare of temper turned her back and sought refuge
with Miss Anna. She was very angry.
But overbalancing the indignities of the evening was now this
supreme joy of Isabel's return to what she believed to be Isabel's
destiny. She sent her grandson home that she might have the drive
with the girl alone. When Isabel, upon entering the carriage, her
head and eyes closely muffled in her shawl, had withdrawn as far as
possible into one corner and remained silent on the way, she
refrained from intrusion, believing that she understood the
emotions dominating her behavior.
The carriage drew up at the door. She got out quickly and passed
to her room--with a motive of her own.
Isabel lingered. She ascended the steps without conscious will.
At the top she missed her shawl: it had become entangled in the
fringe of a window strap, had slipped from her bare shoulders as
she set her foot on the pavement, and now lay in the track of the
carriage wheels. As she picked it up, an owl flew viciously close
to her face. What memories, what memories came back to her! With
a shiver she went over to a frame-like opening in the foliage on
one side of the veranda and stood looking toward the horizon where
the moon had sunk on that other night--that first night of her
sorrow.
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