In one point the Templars of to-day are not a whit behind their predecessors: they give good dinners. For centuries the benchers of the two societies have dined in each other's company once a year in the great hall; and to Mr. Thornbury we are indebted for the following description of a Temple dinner of to-day:
"An Inner Temple banquet is a very grand thing. At five or half-past five the barristers and students in their gowns follow the benchers in procession to the dais; the steward strikes the table solemnly a mystic three times; grace is said by the treasurer or senior bencher present, and the men of law fall to. In former times it was the custom to blow a horn in every court to announce the meal. The benchers observe somewhat more style at their table than the other members do at theirs. The general repast is a tureen of soup, a joint of meat, a tart, and cheese to each mess, consisting of four persons, and each mess is allowed a bottle of port wine. Dinner is served daily to the members of the Inn during term-time,—the masters of the bench dining on the dais, and the barristers and students at long tables extending down the hall. On grand days the judges are present, who dine in succession with each of the four Inns of Court. To the parliament chamber, adjoining the hall, the benchers repair after dinner. The 'loving-cups' used on certain grand occasions are huge silver goblets, which are passed down the table filled with a delicious composition, immemorially termed 'sack,' consisting of sweetened and exquisitely flavored white wine. The butler attends the progress of the cup to replenish it, and each student is by rule restricted to a sip; yet it is recorded that once, though the number present fell short of seventy, thirty-six quarts of the liquid were sipped away. At the Inner Temple, on May 29, a gold cup of sack is handed to each member, who drinks to the happy restoration of Charles II."
The Temple has been for generations a favorite abode with men of letters and others having no leaning toward or connection with the bar. It is a vast bachelors' hall. Fleet Street and its immediate vicinity is the centre of the publishing interest of London. Here many of the great dailies are edited and printed, and "Brain Street," as George Augustus Sala fitly nicknamed it, is midway between the "city" and the "West End, "—the "down town" and the "up town" of London, if such a simile is permissible as applied to a brick-and-mortar polypus whose members radiate toward every point of the compass. No part of the Temple is more than five minutes' walk from this centre of intellectual industry, and yet, once within its walls, the silence and seclusion are complete. The roar and rattle of Fleet Street and the Strand might be a thousand miles away, for scarce a murmur penetrates beyond the Temple gates. The quiet, stone-paved courts, the grassy nooks gemmed with a few choice blossoms, the soft-plashing fountains, overshadowed by sturdy elm-, plane-, or fig-trees, the cool stone archways leading from one court to another, the park-like expanse of the Temple Garden, bounded by the bustling Embankment and the swift-flowing river, are surroundings favorable alike to the labors of a busy journalist, to the novelist's weavings of fiction, to the poet's subtile creations, to the purposeful studies of the patient scholar, or to the objectless dreamings of the mere "man about town."
* * * * *
Red-armed Annette gave a final glance at the table, and as the clock was striking eight summoned Frau Pastorin Raben's boarders to supper. Promptly came the two Von Ente girls, high-born and high-posed damsels, forced to make themselves teachers. It had been a sad blow to their pride. The elder was somewhat consoled by a huge carbuncle brooch given to her by Kaiser Wilhelm himself. The younger was named for a very great lady; and when a letter came from the very great lady the recipient lifted her head and remembered that, whatever happened, she was a Von Ente.
Following them close, there entered the dining-room a woman who painted pictures and sold them. Hedwig Vogel was about fifty, tall, angular, hard-featured. She was reported to be very rich and very mean. Moreover, she was an undoubted democrat; for when Elsa von Ente's lady patron came to the house, everybody kissed the august dame's hand except Hedwig Vogel and "the Mees." Of course "the Mees," poor thing! knew no better; but Fräulein Vogel!—a woman guilty of such a misdemeanor was capable of putting dynamite in Bismarck's night-cap. She responded curtly to the greeting given to her by the Von Entes, and then asked where the Frau Pastorin might be.
"Here," answered a soft voice, and the plump, smiling, suave mistress of the house entered and seated herself at the table. As she bowed her head to invoke a blessing on the smoked herring, the raw ham, the salad, the three kinds of bread, a tardy boarder opened the dining-room door. She stood on the threshold for a minute, then moved swiftly to her place.
"Good-evening, Mees," said the Frau Pastorin, and "Good-evening, Mees," echoed the Von Entes. Fräulein Vogel contented herself with a nod, and attacked bread and ham in hungry silence.
"Your walk has given you a fine color," the Frau Pastorin continued blandly. Then, turning to the artist, "You should paint the Mees, Fräulein. 'A Study of America.' That would sound well, would it not?"
The Study of America smiled a little disdainfully, and refused the raw ham and the herring offered to her by Elsa von Ente. She had refused raw ham and smoked herring at least a hundred times, but yet the Frau Pastorin protested.
"I am sad there is nothing for you," she murmured in English,—a language she fondly fancied she spoke.
"Oh, there is bread galore," said the Mees.
This set the hostess to thinking. Bread she understood; but what was bread galore?
"I should like to learn some American dishes," she said. "Buckwhit cakes, —so, is it right?—I have read of them. How you would relish them to-night, would you not?"
"No," said Mees ungraciously.
"Not?" said the Von Entes, who talked together habitually. "But what then?"
"Beef—mutton—chickens," said Mees.
"We have them here," murmured the Frau Pastorin sweetly.
"Do you?" said Mees, quite as sweetly. And Hedwig Vogel burst out laughing. The Frau Pastorin bit her lip, the Von Ente girls looked blank, and Annette scuttled away, smelling danger from afar, for she knew full well that she often received a vicarious reproof.
Supper over, the table was cleared and a big Bible laid before the Frau Pastorin, who, as a clergyman's widow, felt that it was her duty to set a good example to the sojourners beneath her roof. Hedwig Vogel, however, did not stay to the reading: she went up to her bare, lonely rooms. They were totally lacking in character, for neither the woman nor the artist was betrayed in their appointments. Everything was scrupulously clean and painfully neat about them. German-fashion, the square table was pushed close to the sofa, and held a lamp and four never-opened books. Here Fräulein Vogel seated herself, turned up the lamp-wick, and then crossed her long, lean, sinewy hands in her lap. The tall white porcelain stove made the room so warm that she presently rose and set a window open a little way. She was indeed a dangerous, unconventional creature, a Prussian who cared neither for great ladies nor draughts. She stood there, feeling the damp air of early spring blow in her face. From the beer-hall near by came the sound of music; over the pavement rattled a cart drawn by two weary dogs and followed by a yet wearier peasant-woman; with a brave clink-clank of spurs and sword strode by a brave lieutenant. Above all these sounds Fräulein Vogel's quick ear caught a light foot-fall on the bare stairs without. She crossed the parlor and flung open the door.
"Mees."
"Yes, most gracious lady."
"Ridiculous,—'gracious lady'! Come in."
Mees obeyed, and took the place of honor on the sofa beside the painter.
"I have a favor to ask," she said, with a deprecatory smile, "Don't call me Mees, please. It does not mean anything."
"Shall I say Mees Varing?" asked the painter, with a struggle to pronounce the name properly.
"Unless you like Kitty better," said Mees.
"Kitty—Kitty." Fräulein Vogel repeated it gravely. "Kitty." She smiled.
"Kitty Varing, of New York. Now I have it all."
"No," said Kitty, "not quite. Of Withlacootchie, New York."
They both laughed, the Indian name was so unmanageable. Kitty finally wrote it down, and the painter pronounced it over and over again. At last she straightened up, and said sternly,
"But where is the picture, Mees—Kitty?"
"Ah, you don't want to see it," Kitty exclaimed; "and I don't want to show it to you. I tell you I have no talent. I suppose, though, patience must tell in the end," she added, half to herself.
"Yes, it will tell," said the painter grimly. "It will tell—something.
Go get your picture now."
Kitty crossed the corridor to her own little room. There was the picture, —a sketch in oils of the best-known model in DÃ¥sseldorf, this time rigged out as a Roman peasant. The girl looked at the picture with a frown; she seized it as though she would dash it on the floor in scorn, but, checking the impulse, she carried it to Fräulein Vogel.
The successful painter looked at the sketch in silence for a full minute, holding it off at arm's length. Finally, she laid it down on the table, murmuring, "And after three years' hard work!"
"Only a year's real work," Kitty broke in eagerly. "I have only been here a year, you know; and those two years at home I ought not to count, for I did not work then as I do now."
"Why not?" asked Fräulein Vogel sharply. And Kitty changed color.
"Ah, one must not ask questions," Fräulein Vogel remarked; "but one can have plenty of suspicions. I dare say you were in love, and, as love failed, you have taken to art. So it goes with women. Everything but marriage is a pis-aller."
Kitty half rose: the stray arrow had sped home, and it rankled in a new wound.
"I am a woman myself," added Fräulein Vogel, with a droll smile that melted the girl's anger in an instant.
Kitty dropped down on the sofa. "Well," she said gayly, "I grant that I was in love once on a time; but that is all past. Now I want to be a painter. Listen: I have not much money, I have no friends,—that is, friends such as we read about,—and I must learn to make some money. When I am thirty I shall begin to make money; otherwise—"
"You are spending your capital," said Fräulein Vogel.
"If I spent only my income I should either wear shoes and no clothes, or clothes and no shoes," answered Kitty, laughing, with a little air of recklessness that sat well on her. "Besides," she added sagely, "it is well to burn one's ships. Sink or swim."
"But you are quite sure of swimming?" said Fräulein Vogel, taking up the picture again and looking at it closely.
"It is very bad," Kitty said.
"Abominable," said the painter. She drew a long breath and shook her head. "Abominable," she repeated, almost as though such an abominable piece of work demanded respect. "Ach! You leave old Zweifarbe's studio," she exclaimed. "Send your easel over to me. You want to make some money? Good. There are many artists here in Dåsseldorf who say I cannot paint; there is not one who will say I have not made money. Perhaps I can teach you." And Fräulein Vogel burst out laughing, while Kitty stared at her in blank surprise.
"But you have never taken pupils," she stammered.
"I have never died; but I suppose I shall," was the response.
And so old Zweifarbe lost a pupil,—for Kitty's easel was straightway borne on the back of a sturdy dienstmann to Fräulein Vogel's studio. What a chatter, what a commotion, it caused in the nest of painters! They chirped and gossiped and pecked each other like a flock of sparrows. The Frau Pastorin expressed the popular sentiment when she discussed Hedwig Vogel's eccentricities.
"How much a lesson?" she said, half closing one shrewd gray eye. "How much a lesson? Ah, she would not take pupils,—no, no, not while she was Hedwig Vogel; and der liebe Gott knows she will never be Hedwig anything else. But she will make an exception for our deer Mees Varing; oh, yes, an exception! Wait till Mees Varing's rich American friends come along and buy some of the great Vogel's pictures. You will see."
"But has the Mees any rich friends?" asked her crony the Frau Doctorin.
And then the parson's widow laughed in a worldly way.
"So pretty a girl," she said, "so fine a complexion, such little feet! And those winning ways!"
From which it will be seen that the Frau Pastorin could admire and appreciate a woman who was young and beautiful. So could the painters; but that is easier to believe. And so could the tight-booted lieutenants; but that is perfectly understood. When Kitty Waring crossed the Hof Garten, even that old woman who years and years ago sold little Heinrich Heine plums would point out the girl to her contemporary the venerable under-gardener.
"HÃ¥bsch" the old woman would growl.
"Aber leichtsinnig—leichtsinnig," the old man would add,—for he was a misogynist.
But Kitty was not quite leichtsinnig, although she did stroll through the garden sometimes with Fritz Goebel, sometimes with Otho Weiss, sometimes with her fellow-countryman Joe Buckley. They were all young, all painters, all poor. Who cared what they did? What if they sat on a beach under a linden-tree and played cat's-cradle like children? What if they made little excursions to Zons or to Xanten? What if there was a supper in Joe Buckley's studio, and Kitty Waring and Anna van der Meer—a sedate creature from Rotterdam was she—were taught how to make a true, good bowl? Who cared? In fact, all DÃ¥sseldorf cared.
One day the Frau Pastorin called Kitty into her parlor. "Dear child," she began, "if your good mother—"
"She has been dead fifteen years," said Kitty.
"If your father—" continued the Frau Pastorin.
"He? Oh, I can't remember him at all," said Kitty.
"Have you no family?" was the question that the Frau Pastorin put squarely.
"An uncle or two somewhere in Iowa," Kitty answered. "An aunt brought me up, and then died, poor thing!" A smile flitted across Kitty's face, and tears sprang to her eyes; but her questioner saw only the smile. The world is full of such purblind folk.
"Where were you last night so late?" she said acridly.
Kitty turned on the plump little woman and looked down at her.
"When Miss Smythe told me that I should find a pleasant home here, she made a sad mistake," was the irrelevant answer that Mees gave. It puzzled the Frau Pastorin for full a week. Then Hedwig Vogel and Mees paid their honest debts and took up quarters with Frau Tisch, in the Rosenstrasse.
"It is much pleasanter here," cried; Kitty, as she moved about the parlor, transforming the commonplace aspect of the room. "And it is cheap, too. I thought Frau Tisch would ask more than Frau Raben."
"It is less because we club together," said Fräulein Vogel.
Kitty might have suspected something if her new friend had not had the name of being so close-fisted. Who would dream that Hedwig Vogel could be free-handed?—she who would beat a gemÃ¥se-frau out of two cents; she who refused to subscribe to the fund for painters' widows, declaring that it was as likely she would leave a widow as be left one. She was not susceptible, she cared naught for sweet smiles and gentle ways. That she, a gaunt, grim, brusque woman of fifty, could suddenly feel all the stifled mother-love within her spring up,—that was preposterous, the vain imagining of a romancer.
They worked together, these two, in Hedwig Vogel's studio, and Kitty strove to make up for her lack of talent by her abundance of patience.
"Why did you decide to be a painter?" Fräulein Vogel asked her one day.
"Because I had a start in that line," Kitty answered. "If I had had a start in music I should have tried to play or sing. I wonder if I could sing? They say everybody has a voice. People are just like fields: plough 'em up, plant cabbages, plant potatoes, you can raise some sort of a crop. How do you happen to be a painter?"
Hedwig Vogel paused, palette in one hand, brush in the other. "Because I would rather paint than eat," she answered.
"That is genius," said Kitty solemnly. "I would rather eat. That is lack of genius. But because I want to eat I paint. That is—what would you call that?"
"You have a daub of ochre on your nose," said Fräulein Vogel.
"Anyway," Kitty remarked after a while, "if worse came to worst I could teach. There is German. Now, I really speak German well, don't I? I could teach that."
"Oh, you have the gift o' gab!" said the painter. "But you will be married, sure."
A long silence followed. "I am twenty-four," said Kitty.
"There is no safety for you this side of the grave," said Fräulein Vogel.
"I may be married, but I doubt it," Kitty continued. "I—" And then she dropped her brushes, flung herself prone on the floor, and burst into passionate tears. Hedwig Vogel did not try to comfort her, but she knelt beside her and put her strong right arm about the girl's quivering shoulders. At last Kitty sat up and brushed back her tangled hair.
"Every day I think of him," she said. "Every day I hope, I pray he will come. I watch for the postman,—I have watched for him so long. He never brings me a letter, but my heart stops beating when he draws near the house. When he rings the bell, when the servant comes up the stairs, I shut my eyes. I can almost believe I have the letter in my hand. I almost see the words. But there is never a letter,—there never can be. Oh, I—" She rose and walked to and fro. "I am to blame," she added, laying her hand on Fraulein Vogel's shoulder. "I wronged him by my suspicion, my petty jealousy; then I ran away from him, and expected him to roam over Europe trying to find me. I hid myself from him, and I am eating my heart out because he does not come."
"Suppose," said Fräulein Vogel, "that he is seeking for you now?"
Kitty's wet eyes shone for a moment. "I am not worth that," she said.
"But if he loves you?"
"Oh, he loves me, I know!" she exclaimed. "And I doubted him. I thought all manner of base thoughts, and I told him of them to his face,—to him, the noblest, dearest,—and he never reproached me. Do you wonder I am ashamed to write to him? Do you wonder I dare not ask his pardon?"
"If he loves you he would forgive anything," said Fräulein Vogel.
The room had grown dark, and they mechanically washed their brushes, cleaned their palettes, and made ready to go home. As they crossed the Hof Garten, two or three young painters joined them, and the talk ran on gayly. Fräulein Vogel had heard Kitty's laugh ring out many a time before, but never until now did she hear the sad note that dimmed the sweetness of it. The young men turned away at last.
"To-morrow, then, at eight," sang out Otho Weiss.
"Until to-morrow," cried the others.
"Until to-morrow," Kitty echoed. "Always to-morrow," she added softly to herself.
"I do not understand," said Fräulein Vogel, going back to the talk in the studio.
"I was jealous," Kitty answered simply. "He was above me in station—"
"I thought there was no rank in America," said Fräulein Vogel.
"Then you cannot understand how a big tradesman scorns a little one," Kitty rejoined. "My aunt kept a shop, but she would never let me help her sell pins and needles and tape. No, I must go to school with girls whose fathers sold pins by the ton instead of by the paper,—or by the pound, as you do here. His father sold them by the ton,—a mere matter of big and little. The family was reconciled to me after a while. You see, the family had to be reconciled, for Frank did not care what they said to him."
"He loved you," said Fräulein Vogel.
"Yes, but they wanted him to love somebody else. Perhaps he would have done so if I had not come in his way. Perhaps he would have married the right girl,—a limp, languid creature, with money enough to build a cathedral like the one at Cologne. She made the trouble. They said he was tired of me, that he repented his impetuosity; and I heard it all, and I grew jealous,—jealous of nothing. I reproached him, told him that he wanted her and her money. Then came the crash. My aunt died. I had a chance to come to Europe with some people, and I did not even bid him good-by. Now I expect him to write to me—to find me."
She laughed a little as she said this. "Some day," said Fräulein Vogel.
"If he loves you," she added.
"I doubted him," Kitty said, "and I deserve all this. Ah, if you knew him, if you saw him, you would know what a fool I was!"
They had reached the house by this time, and, as Kitty opened the door, she added, "I must write soon. I must hear something about him. What may not have happened in a year? Perhaps he is dead."
She did not mention her lover again to Fräulein Vogel, but she showed her his portrait; and the sharp-eyed painter looked at the frank, manly face a long time.
"Write to him, you foolish woman," she said.
"Not yet. I will wait a little longer," Kitty rejoined.
The summer wore away. In August they went for a fortnight to a little place near Remagen,—Bad Neunahr it is called,—and here Kitty's eyes were opened, and she suddenly awoke to the fact that her new friend was no ordinary friend.
"You need not worry about money," said Fräulein Vogel. "If you don't learn how to make it, you know how to spend it. I could never learn that myself."
But in the autumn Kitty only worked the harder, believing with all her heart that patience would make a respectable, picture-selling painter out of a Chinese mandarin. When the gray dawn stole in at the window she sprang out of bed, dressed, and was off to the studio for an hour before breakfast. She begrudged the time spent for dinner, she bemoaned a dark day, and she laid her brushes down reluctantly in the twilight. In the evening she wanted to go to the theatre, to a concert, to a supper. Such as she find plenty of companions, and from time to time DÃ¥sseldorf raised its hands over her doings. Fräulein Vogel watched and waited in a sort of patient agony, but at last, not without deep reflection, she wrote a letter to Kitty's sweetheart. She read his name on the back of a photograph, she knew well how to spell the name of the town, she knew the town was near New York, she knew New York was in North America, and she had to buy an extra big envelope to hold the whole address. But the letter was a terrible thing, and a happy thought came to her. She made a little picture of Kitty,—a perfect little picture,—and beneath it she wrote name and address. That was better than a thousand letters. Carefully she did it up, placing tissue-paper above and beneath the cardboard, and laying it tenderly in a white box. Surely it could not go astray, unless all the post-office men were blind; but, to make sure, she would register it, if that were possible. All must be done without Kitty's knowledge, and the touch of mystery made the romance the sweeter. One fine day she sallied forth to send the little portrait on its way. She entered the Hof Garten, sauntered down the Linden Allée thinking all the while how delightfully the comedy would end. Her own part, as good fairy of the play, pleased her, too, and she smiled to herself as she strayed off from the Allée and, seating herself on a bench that was well screened from prying eyes, she gave herself up to revery. Of course the lover would come, of course he would carry Kitty off; but Fräulein Vogel did not mean to be left far behind. She would look after Kitty, for the foolish, impetuous creature would need at least two people to keep her out of mischief.
"Frank."
Some one uttered the name, and Fräulein Vogel peered through the leaves. Sitting near was a pale, sweet-faced woman, drawing figures in the gravel with the tip of her parasol.
"Frank," she repeated, "shall we go home?"
"Do you mean Withlacootchie or the hotel?" was the answer.
The man had his back to Fräulein Vogel, but now he turned, and she recognized him. The portrait had lied a little, as portraits will lie, and yet he was a handsome man enough, after all.
"Home or the hotel, dear?" His voice was very gentle, and his smile tender. "Are you tired of wandering?" he added.
"Oh, no!" she said, "but whither shall we wander?"
"Up-stairs, down-stairs, in my ladies' chamber," he rejoined. "Last summer, the Tyrol; last winter, Italy; this summer, Switzerland; now,—where? We are making a long honeymoon of it."
"And are you tired?" she asked.
He gave a rapid glance up and down the Allée then stooped and kissed her.
Fräulein Vogel had not understood all the words, the caress she saw. She rose and went slowly homeward. In the tiny Dåssel the swans were floating majestically, and, standing there on the bank, she tore the box and the picture into scraps and flung them in the water. The swans hastened after the bits of white paper; they fought and screamed over them, and the victor proudly bore away a fragment from his envious mates, only to discover that it was worthless.
* * * * *
If it finds you with fifty dollars and a fortnight at your command, you cannot do better than spend both on the Great Lakes.
You don't care for water? But the Great Lakes are not water. You follow closely the most interesting and wonderful shore, and seven different times stop for several hours at places on the coast.
Or perhaps you do care for water, and would not like hugging the shore? One day, at least, on Lake Huron, you would be out of sight of land; and if you should have a lake storm, you would have all the ocean "fun" you would care for.
Or you were thinking of the Thousand Isles? There are a thousand isles in the northern part of Lake Huron, just before you turn into the little winding river that leads to the "Soo."
Or you had planned to see Lake George this year? You will see a beautiful copy of Lake George as you leave the little town of Hancock and pass from the narrow river into a broad expanse dotted with islands, just before entering the canal that leads to the upper part of Lake Superior.
But you had rather go West, among the mines? What mines can you find, more interesting than the great copper-mines of Calumet and Hecla and Quincy?—the only place in the United States, indeed, where you can see the curious man-engine, with its arrangement of changing-platforms for carrying the miners up and down.
Well, you meant to go "canoeing." Some very choice canoeing and shooting of rapids you can have during the hours at the Sault Ste. Marie, popularly known as the "Soo," and during the two days that the steamer waits at Duluth before the return-trip Lake Superior will prove not an unattractive spot to paddle about in.
Add to this the interest of the magnificent new locks at the "Soo," the historical and romantic associations with Marquette and Mackinac (for you will not forget that Miss Woolson's "Anne" lived on the Great Lakes), and the creature comforts of big state-rooms, with large, comfortable beds, and running water in the basins, on admirable steamers that set an excellent hotel-table, and you will wonder, as we did, that so few tourists seem to know about, or care for, one of the most enjoyable excursions in the country,—I am quite sure I can say the most enjoyable for the little money it costs.
We took it ourselves quite by accident,—willing to go out of our way a little on the journey to Colorado in the heat of summer for the sake of a little trip by water to compensate for the sea-shore cottage we were leaving behind us for the season. We did not, indeed, begin the trip, as the steamers do, at Buffalo; for, although time and tide wait for no man at the East, at the West there are no tides, and time was willing to make an appointment for us to overtake the steamer at Detroit. We were glad of an excuse for lingering at the House Beautiful in Buffalo, where we would rather spend Sunday any time than on any lake in the world. Fortunately, we had "been to the Falls" many times before, and had seen Niagara in winter splendor and summer loveliness: so we were at liberty to idle away the fleeting hours in the shades of Delaware Avenue, on charming piazzas, till the time came when we must start on the flying trip through Canada if we would overtake the steamer Japan.
She was just gliding into her dock at Detroit as we stepped from the cars, and we still had three or four hours' leisure before she would start again in which to drive about the pretty city and call on friends. Just before midnight we embarked, and our first experience of the Great Lakes was a night of peaceful and serene slumber.
Peaceful and serene, too, was the following day,—a patient waiting for the scenery to begin, sitting with novels on what was facetiously known as "the back piazza" of the Japan, out of sight of land, but gliding over a sea so smooth that the hanging flower-baskets on the deck scarcely stirred. If you scorn such tame delights when apparently at sea, remember that it might have been rough as only lakes are rough in a great storm. It was very warm. The captain's assurance that the next morning we should want to borrow his overcoat and mittens had no effect in disguising the fact that it was warm. The ladies dressed for dinner, many of them in white; and the only excitement of the afternoon was the "sighting" of the Michigan, United States man-of-war, cruising in lake-waters. A little knot of officers on deck waved their handkerchiefs; a little knot of pretty girls on the Japan were responding eagerly, when a severe and elderly voice was heard to say, with distinctness, "The officers' wives are on board the Japan. They are waving to them."
And in fact, as we glided past, a little child was seen at a port-hole of the Michigan, waving a handkerchief to mamma on the Japan. It had been seriously ill, and the mother, forbidden by the United States government to remain with her sick child on the Michigan, preferred to leave him there with his father, where he could have the care of the special surgeon who understood the case, while she followed as closely as she could in one of the lake-steamers. Ah, how interested we all were! It is recorded in history that certain enemies of the Egyptians used to go into battle with them with each man holding a cat in his arms. Suppose in our next war we try the effect upon our enemies of letting each of our soldiers carry a white-robed baby? One thing is certain, the Michigan captured the Japan with all on board that day simply by exhibiting that little white figure at its port-hole. The next day at the "Soo" not a murmur of dissent was heard when the good-natured captain, who had no European mails on board, said he would wait an extra hour for the Michigan to come up, that the anxious mother might have twenty-four hours' later news.
On the second morning there was an entire change of weather and landscape. The sun still shone gloriously (the thermometer that day in Chicago stood at 94), but rugs, seal-skins, and hoods were in demand. We were no longer out of sight of land, but were threading our way in and out among a thousand isles, with hills that seemed almost mountains threatening to bar our course before long if we did not turn back the way we came. No one, the captain said, had ever been known to guess the channel correctly; but before long we had made a sharp turn to the left at the only spot that offered an outlet, and found the Great Lakes narrowed suddenly to a beautiful winding river which led us in the course of another hour or two to the "Soo." Here the steamer would wait three hours, and we could explore the queer little town,—quite a popular resort in summer,—or inspect the splendid locks of the great canal, or shoot the rapids. To me it was a genuine pleasure to find at last some rapids that were visible to the naked eye. The famous rapids of the St. Lawrence had been a severe disappointment, but here were rapids worthy of the name. Lake Superior was visibly above us, Lake Huron visibly below, and between ran the turbulent little stream which of course must be flowing into Lake Huron, though we could not have told merely by looking at it which way the current ran.
"Would we go up the rapids?" We had heard of going down the rapids, but in reality the most wonderful part of the performance is going up. Not only is the current fearfully swift, even close to the shore as it is necessary to keep, but the water seems to be only a few inches deep, and the rocks are as thick as plums in a Christmas pudding. Yet two Indians, standing erect, one in the bow and one in the stern of the canoe, pole you up the stream against these terrible odds as easily and surely as a Harvard oarsman might row you across Seneca Lake. Then they pause for a moment.
"How will you have it going down? Rough?" they ask.
"Rough," we answer, wondering what in the world they can mean by speaking as if they were the autocrats of wind and current.
But it seems there are two channels,—one near shore for the timid, and one in mid-stream. We were not to be betrayed into any exhibition of timidity after that first hesitating question, "Do you know the rapids well? How many times have you taken people down?" To which the quiet reply had been, "Three times a day, lady, for twenty years." Twenty thousand times, by rough calculation!
So we went over in mid-stream, and were not sorry,—receiving as we stepped ashore what is probably a part of every programme, the compliment of being "the bravest lady that ever went over the falls."
Many a pleasant day, or week, one might undoubtedly spend at the Sault Ste. Marie, or at Mackinac; but if you have only turned through the straits and gone southward again to Chicago through Lake Michigan, do not think of saying that you have taken the trip on the Great Lakes. To me the Great Lakes will always mean Lake Superior. It is something unique in the geography of the world, and you have the consciousness of your actual height above the level of the sea as you rarely have on any elevated land that is not actually a mountain. Ruskin says that for him the flowers lose their light, the river its music, when he tries to divest any given landscape of its associations with human struggle and endeavor. Our New World scenery, of course, has little of that wonderful charm of association; but there is something singularly impressive in the mere silence and vastness of our great Northern solitudes.
We entered Lake Superior late in the afternoon, and the only event of the evening was a magnificent aurora. Toward midnight the gorgeous tints changed to a thin wedge of perfectly white light, against which in a duskier white the sails of passing vessels were distinctly outlined, though no hulls were visible.
At Marquette, in the morning, a party of Finnish emigrants on board left the ship. Half a dozen Americanized Finns, who had evidently been the inspiring cause of this influx of new citizens, had come to the wharf to greet the new arrivals. They had the same short stature, the same stolid features, as their relatives on board; but there was a difference. The white shirt, the clean collar, the smart straw hat and vivid necktie, with a vigorous step, alert manner, decisive tones, and a certain tendency to help the women with their heavy boxes, distinctly individualized those who had been awhile under American influence.
All day we basked in the sunshine on the captain's bridge. Think of being glad to bask in the sunshine on a 4th of August! Between Marquette and Portage River we passed but one house,—one solitary, lonely house, set on the very edge of the "unsalted sea;" before it a vast expanse of limitless waters, behind it an unbroken, limitless forest; no fields, no crops, no roads, only space enough cleared for the tiny cabin and tinier shed. What had lured people there? What kept them alive? No neighbors, no mail, no farm, no apparent object in life, and only one small rowboat to get away in.
Yet they had put a curtain up at the window! No human being could by any possibility look in at that window. Even the curtain could only be detected with an opera-glass from the steamer that passed twice a week. But the sweet instinct of privacy and home had had its way, and every night the little curtain that never shut out anything but the incurious moonlight or the innocent stars was drawn as regularly as the shades of a Fifth Avenue mansion. Later we learned that it was the Life-Saving Station of Lake Superior.
"No nap this afternoon, ladies," said the captain as he left the luncheon-table. "You must be on the lookout for Portage River."
All the afternoon we watched for the little river, eked out by a canal, that enables us to cut off one hundred and twenty miles of what would be the course around Keweena Point, besides giving what is perhaps the most interesting part of the whole trip. So narrow is the opening of the river that no trace of it is to be seen till we are close upon it; yet swift as the dove from far Palmyra flying, unerring as an arrow from the bow, the great ship sweeps across the lake to exactly the right spot. The river is hardly the width of a canal, yet curves as no canal would ever curve, so that the captain in giving orders has to watch both ends of the vessel to see that neither runs aground. It would be impossible for two steamers to pass each other in the river, and the contingency of their meeting is guarded against by the fact that returning steamers have to go round the Point, being too heavily laden with flour from Duluth. As it was, there were but thirteen feet of water in the river, and the Japan drew twelve.
Once in the river, we experienced a most extraordinary transformation. Every one knows what it is to pass in a day or two from northern snow to southern roses, or in a few hours from valley roses to mountain snow; but here, in five minutes, and remaining on precisely the same level, we passed from October to July. The cold lake-breeze died away, and on the little inland river the sun was actually oppressive. Seal-skins were cast aside, and we sent hastily below for sun-umbrellas. The speed of the steamer was slackened to four miles an hour. You heard no click of machinery or swash of water against the sides: we were gliding on through a green and lovely marsh, with water-lilies all about us and wild roses in the distance. Cattle stood knee-deep in pleasant brooks, locusts hummed and buzzed in the warm air, all sweet summer sounds and scents encompassed us. There was even a little settlement of scattered houses; but the expected steamer had evidently created no excitement in the inmates. It would not stop; it brought them neither mail nor summer boarder: why should they care just to see it pass? One man, painting the window-sashes of his house with his back to the steamer, never even turned or paused from his work, though we were so near that he might have heard what was said about him on the deck. It is not the dweller in the wilderness, but the denizen of cities, that longs for something to happen.
At Hancock the steamer waits several hours, giving an opportunity to visit the wonderful copper-mines. We chanced to be there just at the hour to see one of the unique sights of America,—the working of the man-engine that brings the miners up from their work. Even by machinery it takes them half an hour to reach daylight. The mine is worked to the depth of fifteen hundred feet, and for five hundred we could gaze down into the dark and awful shaft, lit for us by the candles burning in the miners' caps. Two long beams, to which are attached at right angles little platforms at intervals of eight feet, each platform holding one man, work up and down. As each man reaches the level of the platform above on the opposite beam the engine stops just long enough for him to step from one to the other. The long, silent, spectral procession, moving with such shadowy precision and constant motion, with the glimmering lights changing, not fitfully, but with the regularity of well-trained will-o'-the-wisps, made a panorama not easily forgotten. Every minute or two, as the engine paused, the miner whose platform had reached the top sprang suddenly, like a jack-in-the-box, out of the opening into which we were gazing, touched his hat, and disappeared into the town. Long as we waited, the procession was not yet ended when we had to go back to the Japan.
It is just beyond Hancock that the river broadens into the beautiful expanse so like Lake George. As we glided away from the wharf in the light of a splendid sunset, it was curious to look back at the simple little town, so remote from luxury, even from civilization, so humble in its own wants and pleasures, yet pouring such vast sources of supply into the great world of which it knew nothing and asked nothing, save the privilege of enriching it.
At twilight we entered the canal. I have been up the Saguenay, I have been over the Marshall Pass and through the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas, and I have seen many noble scenes in Europe, but no scenery has ever impressed me with such solemnity as the landscape on that canal in the twilight of an August afternoon. Nor was it merely a personal impression. There were two hundred souls on board, with the usual proportion of giddy young girls and talkative youths; the negro waiters as we entered the canal were singing and playing their violins; but in an instant, as the speed of the steamer was again checked to four miles an hour, every sound was hushed on board. During the hour that was occupied in going through the canal, it is a literal fact that not a sound was heard on the great steamer but the low impressive orders of the captain and—if you chanced to be on the captain's bridge—the ticking of the clock in the wheel-house. People spoke in whispers, if they spoke at all, quite unconscious of it till they remembered it afterward. What made it so impressive? I am sure I do not know. Certainly there was nothing awful in the scenery, and we never were in less danger in our lives. We were moving peacefully through a long, narrow sheet of perfectly calm water, stretching straight as a die from the river to the upper lake. If anything had happened, we could have jumped ashore on either side, and another steamer from Buffalo would have come through in a day or two and picked us up. The only thing possible to fear was that we might ground in the shallow water, an emergency from which we could only be relieved, as there are no tides in the lakes, by the tedious process of lightening the cargo. It was a perfectly clear evening after a most beautiful day. But on either side of us, far as the eye could reach, stretched an apparently unbroken forest. Through the narrow vista cleared for our silvery pathway a slow and stately twilight came solemnly to fold us in its embrace, as we advanced solemnly and slowly from vast and awful solitudes to solitudes more vast and awful still. As we drew near the lake again, a little light-house gleamed, and, as we swept past it out into the broad expanse of limitless waters, the cheerful throb of the machinery quickened again upon the sea, the pleasant swish of the water against the ship greeted us once more, life, movement, and gayety sprang out again on board, and in an instant the entire steamer had burst into laughter and chat and song. We were really in far more danger, from storm or collision or fire, out on the great lake; but the sense of awe had been lifted from us.
We were due at Duluth at four o'clock of the following afternoon. What would she be like, this "zenith city of the unsalted seas," with such a stately avenue of approach? At three o'clock we began to see in the distance what seemed to be her cloud-capped towers and domes and palaces; at half-past three a beautiful little humming-bird, blown from the shore, lit on my scarlet necktie and pecked at this strange flower from the East; at four we were at the wharf.
"I think," said my companion slowly, gazing sorrowfully at the shanties that had made such splendid domes in the distance, "I think I should have called it Delusion, instead of Duluth. It looks like a town in Dickens's 'American Notes' illustrated by Dor?
Surely never was there a more forlorn little town, trying to scramble up a hillside covered with the tall trunks of dead trees and blackened stumps, shut out from one world by the waste of waters before it, shut in from another by dreary, verdureless hills. Surely nobody lived there; those could not be homes, those desolate frame houses where people were "staying" awhile. It seemed as if the whole town, like "Poor Joe," would soon be told by a vigilant policeman to "move on."
And we, who were looking forward to Colorado, needed no policeman to urge us to "move on" by the earliest train to St. Paul.
* * * * *
Aurora wrote to the address given her by the Duke of Sassovivo, and received an immediate reply. The tone of her letter might be described as dutiful. She could assume no other. That pale face and weary voice were ever before her. She wrote much as she might have written to Fra Antonio, though with less ease; and the reply was not calculated to change this new position in which the two stood to each other. D'Rubiera wrote freely of his movements and plans, and of his son, but made no reference to his feelings, and did not mention the past, or any future beyond his travels.
"I trust that you will not leave me in ignorance of any contemplated change in your mode of life," he concluded, "and that you will come to no decision on any subject of importance without giving me the privilege of offering my advice, even if you should think best not to follow it."
The letter included a note to Mrs. Lindsay, which she answered; and her answer called forth a letter addressed to herself. There seemed to be no reason why Aurora should write again, and, by the tacit consent of all, the correspondence fell into Mrs. Lindsay's hands. Sometimes Aurora did not see these letters, or saw but a part of them,—though her friend always told her the duke's movements and plans and read her out some message from him to herself.
Possibly the reason of this reserve lay in the fact that Mrs. Lindsay made Aurora the principal theme of her letters. Her triumphs, her beauty, her goodness, her admirers, her acts, her sayings, even her little whims, were all recounted.
The lady was a good letter-writer. She wrote in a simple, self-colored way a clear narrative of their life in Venice, ignoring sentiment and reflections; yet the many little incidents and phrases which she set down were like so many touches with a full brush, and gave life to what she told.
The duke remained in England but a short time. Robertino was perfectly contented, he wrote, and better without him. He crossed the ocean, and threw himself into the life of the New World, going east, west, north, and south, glancing at the agriculture, commerce, and manufactures of that prodigious country, which astonished him. The magnificent strength and vitality of it all braced him, waked him up, and dispelled his miasmas. Back to England; and, before they knew that he was there, off to Spain; and when they thought of him as in Spain, he had returned to England.
And here at length he took a brief repose. He began to go into society, and wrote Mrs. Lindsay the names of persons he met and whom she might know. Among those whom he saw constantly was Lady Maud Churchill, whom he pronounced exquisitely beautiful.
Mr. Edward Churchill was with them when the letters were brought, and
Mrs. Lindsay read out this compliment to him.
"Lady Maud is my cousin," he said. "She is a woman carved in alabaster."
Mrs. Lindsay gave Aurora the letter to read when she went to her room, and she sat there by her window after having read it, the open sheet in her lap.
"Exquisitely beautiful," she repeated, looking down at the words. "He will marry her. I am glad that he is going to marry an Englishwoman. She must be good, if she is like her cousin."
She looked out at the bright April sunlight dreamily, and for a long time without stirring. She was considering if she had not better accept Mrs. Lindsay's invitation to accompany them to America in June. She would like to see that wonderful golden land where nobody is ragged and nobody poor, —to see its prairies and forests, its cities sprung up since yesterday, its wide, clean streets with trees in them, its people, unresting, truth-telling, generous and courageous, if not always polite.
"Fancy a country where the people drink water!" exclaimed a Frenchman, on seeing water sold in the streets of Seville.
"Fancy a nation where the people are for the most part truthful!" thought this Italian, sitting in the window of a Venetian palace and looking out into the Canal Grande.
"I had better go," she said. "I shall never again have so good an opportunity. And I really do not know what else to do. There is nothing to keep me here."
And then, with the thought that she might indeed go to the ends of the earth and never come back, for any tie that held her, came the bitter remembrance of her losses.
"Oh, mamma!" she whispered, and began to cry,—not with the passion of her first sorrow, but piteously and low, with a sense of desolation.
The next day Mrs. Lindsay wrote the duke, "A name you mention in your letter opens the way to a story I have to tell you. Lady Maud Churchill has a cousin in Venice who is a frequent visitor of ours, and more than an admirer of Aurora's. It has been on my mind, to write you of this gentleman, but I always put off doing so with the expectation of having something of importance to communicate concerning him the next time. Last evening he confided to me that he offered himself to Aurora a month ago, and was refused, but so kindly that he could not give up all hope. She told him that she was free, and had a sincere regard for him, but that she did not mean to marry any one.
"Of course no man would believe his case hopeless with such a reply; and Mr. Churchill seems to think that Aurora is softening toward him. It really seems so to me also. Last evening she sat apart and talked with him nearly two hours; and this morning, as we sat alone, she suddenly exclaimed, 'I wish that Mr. Churchill would come in!'
"It is true that, having refused him once, she may feel free to show that she likes him as a friend. However it may turn out, I hope that she may be as happy as she deserves. For my part, I could not wish her a more honorable and devoted lover. He is a man calculated to win affection and esteem."
This letter was brought to the duke just as he was going out to a ball. He went back to his room to read it; and, having read it, he flung it angrily into the lighted grate.
"What does the woman mean! I'll shoot the fellow if he dares to wring a promise out of Aurora. And this stuff about Lady Maud. What did I write? Do they fancy that I care for her? I like her as I like Wenham ice. Aurora 'softening' toward this impudent Englishman! She would soften toward a cat if it cried. Mr. Edward Churchill her devoted lover! Arcidiavolo!"
With this growl of rage, rolling and deep-drawn, the Italian went to his escritori, and wrote, "Aurora should not think of marrying an Englishman. Sooner or later he is sure to return to England; and what would she do here? I do not at all approve of the match; and I hope that you will do all that you can to prevent it. Above all, do not let anything be concluded in haste."
An event of importance in Mrs. Lindsay's family prevented her replying to this note. Shortly after its reception her first child was laid in her arms. Nor did she show the note to Aurora, though she requested her to write a line to the duke, informing him that a young lady of the most tender age but obstinate will had placed a veto on her writing at present.
It would be impossible to say whether father or mother was more happy and proud over the advent of this little girl, but there could be no doubt that the mother was the more peremptory and authoritative concerning it. If Mrs. Lindsay had been queen of the household before, she was empress now, and that in her own right.
"You are only prince consort, John," she remarked to her husband, when he suggested that the child might be baptized in the house by the resident Protestant minister. "I am regnant. My daughter may be baptized by a Protestant minister, and welcome, if—but she is going to be baptized in San Marco, and Aurora Coronari is to be her godmother and Prince P—— her godfather. If you can reconcile that with your minister, do so."
The prince consort bowed his head meekly. "I have no particular objection that a priest should baptize her," he said. "I am very much pleased to have the prince and Aurora stand sponsors for her. Of course it doesn't make any difference what they promise for her now. She will be sure to do as she pleases when she grows up,—if she should turn out to be like her mother."
The baptism took place on the first day of May, in the morning; and the company invited to assist were to return to Palazzo Pesaro to breakfast in honor of the event.
Mrs. Lindsay had her gondola—the baby's gondola pro tem..—decorated for the occasion. An immense white umbrella, lined with gold-colored silk, was fixed to cover the seats, and the whole gondola was lined and carpeted with white and pale blue. A blue fringe fell over the edge almost to the water, and bouquets of flowers were bespoken.
Not only this: she had made a pact with Aurora, who declared that a girl baptized in the month of May should have Mary for one of her names. Mrs. Lindsay would include the name if Aurora would attend the ceremony dressed like the Madonna of an ancient picture of hers, she herself to furnish the dress; and Aurora consented.
This Madonna on a sparkling gold ground had a long veil of dim blue falling over her head and shoulders, and wore a dress of dull-red wool with faint golden reflection. It was a Raphael dress, and had a band of fine gold embroidery across the neck and round the wrists.
The dress came home the evening before, and was tried on and displayed to the family, with whom was Mr. Edward Churchill.
"There! wasn't I right?" exclaimed Mrs. Lindsay in triumph.
"Suppose we should scrape out the Madonna and have Aurora painted in her place," Mr. Lindsay proposed, with perfect seriousness.
"The Madonna is an antiquity," his wife said, with dignity.
"But her eyes are turned like a Chinese's," the gentleman persisted.
"And her expression is cross."
"I wouldn't do it for the world," Aurora declared. "I feel almost wicked in assuming her dress."
"Well," Mr. Lindsay sighed. "Only don't assume her squint, and I think you will be forgiven the clothes."
Every night when Aurora went to her room she extinguished her candle and sat awhile by the open window. The custom had at first been a poetical one, it was now a sign of trouble. She had seen that evening but too clearly that one refusal was not enough for Mr. Edward Churchill.
"It is another reason for going away," she thought. "I must take myself out of his sight. And yet I like him so! Why cannot he be friendly and nothing more?"
The canal was almost deserted, though the Lagoon below was alive with boats. The water was a dark mirror below. She could see the stars in it, and the sound of its liquid touch to step and mooring-post was almost inaudible.
As she sat there, a gondola slid along inside the posts and stopped under her window. A moment after, a chord was struck on the strings of a mandolin.
Ah! a serenade! It was not her first one by far, and she leaned forward with pleasure to hear it. The scene was well set for music. But as the first words fell on her ear she shrank back again. It was Edward Churchill's mellow voice, and he sang a serenade of Mrs. Norton's, in English:
Soft o'er the fountain,
Lingering, shines the southern moon;
Far o'er the mountain
Breaks the day,—too soon.
In thy dark eyes' splendor,
Where the warm light loves to dwell,
Weary looks, yet tender,
Speak their fond farewell.
Nita, Juanita, ask thy soul if we should part!
Nita, Juanita, lean thou on my heart!
When, in thy dreaming,
Hours li'ke these shall shine again,
And morning beaming
Prove thy dream is vain,
Wilt thou not, relenting,
For thine absent lover sigh,
In thy heart consenting
To a prayer gone by?
Nita, Juanita, let me linger by thy side!
Nita, Juanita, be my own dear bride!
Silence fell, continued, and pressed. There was no note of music from below, no response from above. Then there was a stroke of oars lightly falling, then ceasing, and again silence. Not a sign of response. Slowly the gondola glided away and disappeared in the night.
"I am so sorry for him!" Aurora murmured, and softly closed her window.
"So sorry!"
She recollected what Mrs. Lindsay had said of the fascination of this serenade: "If the woman who hears this sung to her—well sung—on a beautiful night does not at once accept the singer, it is because she is in love with some one else."
"I am in love with freedom and with poetry," Aurora exclaimed, and hastily put the subject away.
The cortège that accompanied the babe to church the next morning was a picturesque one. A dozen gondolas brought their loads to the palace steps, and the company entered and paid their respects to the mother while waiting for the procession from the nursery.
Mrs. Lindsay, on this her first appearance, received in one of the front salons,—a room lined with gold-colored satin, with sofas and chairs covered with maroon velvet flowers on a gold satin ground. She wore a marvellous toilet, which looked like sea-foam, so covered was it with laces.
"The difficulty with these rooms is that they extinguish almost anything that you can wear," she said. "Nothing looks well against these draperies but old point-lace. That asserts itself anywhere."
She certainly contrived to make herself a very lovely and interesting object seen against those rich cushions. No color reflected upon her but light, in her slight languor and pallor of convalescence, her cheeks delicately thinned, she was like a white rose drooping in the heat of noonday.
The nursery sent down its treasure. First came Aurora in her Madonna dress, and was received with acclamations. Then came a footman, then two wondrously-dressed nurses, with their heads a halo of silver filigree pins, one of the nurses bearing the lace-wrapped infant in a white embroidered mantle that fell almost to the floor. Two maids followed.
This little company filled the babe's gondola, that swept out, the others following and surrounding it as they glided down to San Marco. The place of honor was the infant's, and Aurora sat at her left hand, and bent to talk to her and keep her in good humor.
"She looks at you, Donna Aurora," the nurse said. "And, see! she smiles."
In fact, it had been found that Aurora had the right magic "Coo-coo!" and the cunning hand and soothing cheek which babies require.
At starting, she had observed a covered gondola at rest opposite the house, and saw that some one was watching them from its curtained window. It was not surprising, for their little pageant was pretty. But she was surprised when the gondola slipped forward beside her own and became almost entangled with their followers. For a moment she thought that it might be Mr. Churchill, but a swift, stolen glance showed her that the arm which rested by the window wore a military sleeve.
"Some officer who knows the family," she concluded. They knew a good many officers.
The entanglement was but momentary, and might have been accidental, the person inside having evidently given orders to let them pass. Leaning on his oar against the out-flowing tide, the gondolier took his hat off and bowed lowly, smiling at the babe.
"E riverita, Madama Innocenza!" he said.
Aurora gave him a kind glance. "But you will be more innocent still in a few minutes," she said to the infant.
They reached the landing, and walked across the piazza to Saint Mark's, and entered the baptistery. A good many people gathered about the door during the ceremony, and among them Aurora was aware of a military officer who stood leaning against the grating. She did not look at him, or she would have known that his eyes were fixed on her alone.
When, after holding the infant at the font, and giving it a string of names as long as a rosary, she turned to restore it to its nurse, and bent to kiss its rosy face as she released it, the officer smiled, gazing earnestly at her downcast eyes. He saw her lips move in a whisper.
She was repeating the gondolier's salutation: "E riverita, Madama
Innocenza!"
As they went out, her veil brushed the gold-banded sleeve, and she heard a faint sigh from the wearer. It required a force not to look at him, not to show that she was conscious of his presence and pleased by it. Any one who wore a soldier's dress touched her heart, from general down to orderly.
Home through the sunshine, in through the shaded court, up the stair with its painted lords and ladies looking down upon them from the painted arcade.
Mrs. Lindsay came out to the stair to receive them, and to embrace her infant before dismissing it to the nursery.
Mr. Churchill had joined them at Saint Mark's, and returned with them, sitting beside Aurora at breakfast. Both ignored the serenade as if it had never been.
"My cousin Edith and Mrs. Graham arrived last evening," he said. "They will stop here a week or two before returning to England."
"Oh, I should like to see them!" Aurora said cordially. "Tell me where they are, and I will leave a card today. I am sure, too, that Mrs. Lindsay will wish to make their acquaintance."
The breakfast ended with coffee in the beautiful garden the dining-room windows looked into; then one by one the company departed. Mr. Churchill lingered a few minutes after the others, then went, seeing no hope of an interview with Aurora.
As soon as he had left the room, Mr. Lindsay accompanying him, Mrs. Lindsay turned with an almost impatient vivacity to Aurora. "At last I can tell you!" she exclaimed. "Do you know who is in Venice, who sent me a note while you were at church, and who will dine with us this evening?"
She looked triumphant and joyful.
Aurora was silent a moment. "I can guess," she said. "And yet—"
"D'Rubiera has come!" Madama announced. "What other coming could be so joyful to us? He has left the boy in England, has himself been to Rome on a flying visit for business purposes, and is come back to see us. Is it not delightful? That was all I needed to make this the loveliest day of my life."
"Did you see him?" Aurora asked.
"Why, no! His note was left immediately after you started. I sent a reply instantly to his hotel, asking him to dine with us. His acceptance was handed me while we were taking coffee. Did you not see Febiano present the note? It was a comedy. That man cannot resign the idea that we are official people, I and John both, and he never lets a note wait, whoever may be with me. He comes with a solemn, gliding discretion, a sort of secret-stairway manner, and half presents, half slides the note to me, as if it were a call to a council of inquisitors in the ducal palace."
"I hope that the duke is not so unhappy as he was when last I saw him,"
Aurora said gravely.
"What should he be unhappy about?" demanded Madama, who seemed indeed to be in the highest of spirits. "He has youth, health, wealth, rank, a character worthy all these blessings, and a beautiful boy. Do you imagine that he is going to mourn forever for a woman whom he never really loved, and who disgraced and tormented him? Poor thing! let her rest. It is almost a year since she died, and he has paid sufficient respect to her memory. I take it for granted that the duke is as full of life and spirit and joy as a man can be."
"Madama Teresa mia," said Aurora, "whom are you scolding? Allow me to remind you that I expressed a wish that the duke would not prove to be unhappy."
"And the wish implied a doubt," her friend retorted. "And your reference to the past was a shadow. And I will have no shadows to-day. Now I am going to have my repose, and I advise you to do the same. And you will wear the same dress at dinner, will you not? It is so pretty. Besides, you are looking rather pale, and it gives you a glow."
She went; and Aurora, instead of following her advice to go to rest, took refuge in the ball-room, which was her in-door promenade. She was never interrupted there. When she was in the ball-room, and they heard her light step going to and fro, it was taken for granted that she was composing, and the room became a sanctuary. No profane foot must cross the threshold.
She was very far from composing verses on this May afternoon. She was trying to tranquillize her mind, which Mrs. Lindsay's news had disturbed. She would be glad to see the duke, surely, dear kind friend that he was! Yet what meant the shrinking which accompanied that pleasant anticipation? She felt that she should tremble at his approach, and that her voice would falter. It would be a strange folly; and yet she feared that it would be impossible to control herself.
"It is because of all that happened before I left Sassovivo," she murmured to herself. "I have got him tangled up in my mind with those miserable affairs. I am certainly growing nervous, and it will never do. Away with all that has passed since he became Duke of Sassovivo! Su, Rubiera, whom I knew a soldier years ago, who bade me sing, and laid your drawn sword across the keys of my piano-forte for a motive, —Rubiera, who came across a chasm to me as I stood clinging to the broken wall, and smiled courage into my sinking heart. Su, Rubiera, who divided the olive-twig with me, promising to challenge me when we met again with Fuori il verde! It was I who showed the green and gave the challenge when we met, and I have the three leaves yet." She drew a locket from her breast, and opened it to look at the memento, and at her mother's miniature enclosed with it.
She was smiling now. That bright past had thrust aside all painful recollections, and the old cordial, loving confidence was coming up again.
The sun, declining to the palace roofs opposite, flooded the room with light. It made Aurora's red dress brilliant, and played and sparkled on the gold she wore. Twenty little golden chains of Venice hung around her neck, slender thread after thread from throat to girdle, invisible now with fineness, and now showing a misty flash in the sun. There was a gold filigree rose in her hair, which at certain movements changed to a red rose, and then to a pallid flame, and in the shadow it had all the softness of a yellow rose just blown.