Page:My Dear Cornelia (1924).pdf/257



been having a curiously disquieting premonition—primarily the result of Oliver's indiscreet betrayal of intimate family matters—that Cornelia must have been gravely altered by the shocks and strains of the preceding seven months. She might seem almost a stranger, I thought; and as we plunged into the walnut grove and I caught a glimpse in the distance of the broad yellowish-white front of the villa, and knew that in a few seconds I should see her, I was conscious of a caved-in feeling, together with a tension of the nerves, such as Enoch Arden experienced on turning into his garden walk after a protracted absence. But so far as the eye could see, there was absolutely nothing in my premonition.

As we drew up before the door of Santo Espiritu, she waved to us from an open window and flew out to meet us, with her incredible, indescribable air of a young girl, and in a certain very simple blue gown, or the replica of a blue gown in which I had remarked last summer that she