it was many years before she ceased to wonder—whether the healing had been needed or not.
"Very well, thank you, Miss Lane," said John Bassett, with an untroubled and warm-hearted smile, in reply to her first inquiry. "I am always well. Have you been well? and your mother and aunt? You asked me to come and see you, if I came to town, and so as I was here to-day, I called. Are you well?"
"I 'm very glad you did," said Fanny; and with an uneasy instinct which she never felt in a ball-room, she drew close up to her throat the fleecy shawl she had thrown over her shoulders as she came down-stairs. Without knowing what she felt, she had felt the avoidance in John Bassett's eyes. "Yes, I am very well."
"You do not look as well as you did in Deerway," said the honest man, looking at her more closely now that he could; "you are not out-of-doors enough, are you?"
"Oh, yes, but it 's a different out-of-doors," said Fanny. "It 's only one degree better than in-doors; but it 's all we can have till summer comes, and we can get back to Deerway."
"Will you be in Deerway next summer again?" asked John.
"Oh, no, Mr. Bassett, nor for two or three summers; we are going to Europe in May, to stay three years!" exclaimed Fanny, with great animation. "I 'm so delighted. It has been the dream of my
