The justice came in.  A middle sized man, with pompous features, and a pompous walk, and a flaxen wig.  In his aquiline nose, compressed lips, and pointed chin, might be traced a resemblance to his daughter; though he never could have been half so good-looking as was pretty Barbara.

“Richard,” spoke up Mrs. Hare from between her shawls, the instant he opened the door.

“Well?”

“Would you please let me have tea in now?  Would you very much mind taking it a little earlier this evening?  I am feverish again, and my tongue is so parched I don’t know how to speak.”

“Oh, it’s near seven; you won’t have long to wait.”

With this exceedingly gracious answer to an invalid’s request, Mr. Hare quitted the room again and banged the door.  He had not spoken unkindly or roughly, simply with indifference.  But ere Mrs. Hare’s meek sigh of disappointment was over, the door re-opened, and the flaxen wig was thrust in again.

“I don’t mind if I do have it now.  It will be a fine moonlight night and I am going with Pinner as far as Beauchamp’s to smoke a pipe.  Order it in, Barbara.”

The tea was made and partaken of, and the justice departed for Mr. Beauchamp’s, Squire Pinner calling for him at the gate.  Mr. Beauchamp was a gentleman who farmed a great deal of land, and who was also Lord Mount Severn’s agent or steward for East Lynne.  He lived higher up the road some little distance beyond East Lynne.

“I am so cold, Barbara,” shivered Mrs. Hare, as she watched the justice down the gravel path.  “I wonder if your papa would say it was foolish of me, if I told them to light a bit of fire?”

“Have it lighted if you like,” responded Barbara, ringing the bell.  “Papa will know nothing about it, one way or the other, for he won’t be home till after bedtime.  Jasper, mamma is cold, and would like a fire lighted.”

“Plenty of sticks, Jasper, that it may burn up quickly,” said Mrs. Hare, in a pleading voice, as if the sticks were Jasper’s and not hers.

Mrs. Hare got her fire, and she drew her chair in front, and put her feet on the fender, to catch its warmth.  Barbara, listless still, went into the hall, took a woolen shawl from the stand there, threw it over her shoulders, and went out.  She strolled down the straight formal path, and stood at the iron gate, looking over it into the public road.  Not very public in that spot, and at that hour, but as lonely as one could wish.  The night was calm and pleasant, though somewhat chilly for the beginning of May, and the moon was getting high in the sky.

“When will he come home?” she murmured, as she leaned her head upon the gate.  “Oh, what would life be like without him?  How miserable these few days have been!  I wonder what took him there!  I wonder what is detaining him!  Corny said he was only gone for a day.”

The faint echo of footsteps in the distance stole upon her ear, and Barbara drew a little back, and hid herself under the shelter of the trees, not choosing to be seen by any stray passer-by.  But, as they drew near, a sudden change came over her; her eyes lighted up, her cheeks were dyed with crimson, and her veins tingled with excess of rapture—­for she knew those footsteps, and loved them, only too well.