Drawing a long, quivering
breath, she fell back on the couch, and her eyes again lighted with
their playful expression, as she hummed a low rapid air, with a voice in
which even the suppressed tones were liquid melody.
Dillon entered, preceding the soldier, whose gait had become more
steady, and in whose rigid eye a thoughtful expression had taken the
place of its former vacant gaze. In short, something had manifestly
restored to him a more complete command of his mental powers, although
he might not have been absolutely sobered. The rest of the party
continued in the gallery, while Mr. Dillon presented the renovated
captain to the colonel, when the latter did him the same kind office
with the ladies.
"Miss Plowden," said the veteran, for she offered first in the circle,
"this is my friend, Captain Borroughcliffe: he has long been ambitious
of this honor, and I have no doubt his reception will be such as to
leave him no cause to repent he has been at last successful."
Katherine smiled, and answered with ambiguous emphasis:
"I know not how to thank him sufficiently for the care he has bestowed
on our poor persons."
The soldier looked steadily at her for a moment, with an eye that seemed
to threaten a retaliation in kind, ere he replied:
"One of those smiles, madam, would be an ample compensation for services
that are more real than such as exist only in intention."
Katherine bowed with more complacency than she usually bestowed on those
who wore the British uniform; and they proceeded to the next.
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