Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14.djvu/76

66 the open cabinet-casement, but, hoping to escape notice, flitted on after the lace, with which the breeze was already frolicking. Suddenly the dog perceived her object and bounded after it. Fear possessed her soul; it was Laura Murray's; he would rend and mouth the costly thing, which her whole year's salary, she thought, could not buy, as he would her handkerchief. She softly called him away; but the dog refused to hear.

"Rounce!" cried another voice, and Rounce came tumbling and gambolling back, while Mr. St. George obtained the shawl, and was beside her.

"So, Miss Changarnier, it was this little thing that brought you out here after midnight? Never do it again. It is forbidden. Nothing could be more unsafe."

"Thank you, Mr. St. George; I did not perceive danger."

As she spoke, and while they paused, there stole upon them the far and faint pulsation of a bell. It was the tide-bell placed on a distant reef to swing and ring with the ebb and flow.

Era già l'ora che volge 'l desio

A' naviganti, e intenerisce 'l cuore

Lo dì ch' an detto a' dolci amici a Dio;

E che lo nuovo peregrin d'amore

Punge, se ode squilla di lontano

Che paia 'l giorno pianger che si muore,"

murmured Mr. St. George, half lifting the book in which his bitter mood had sought stinging solace, and where his finger yet kept the place.

"It is many hours too late for that sweet vesper-bell," said Éloise.

"Any slow bell at night is like it. The tones of a bell are always homesick tones to me,—who have no home!"

"You, Sir!" said Éloise, forgetfully,—half losing sight of her own burden.

Mr. St. George, for all response, gazed at her a moment. Was she entirely plighted to Marlboro'? Could she care for him? How far did that tacit promise go?

"Éloise!" he said.

But suddenly she turned away her head, outstretching a forbidding hand. Abruptly he bowed and stepped aside, and followed her only at a distance.

When Mr. Marlboro' appeared just at breakfast the next morning, with a color fanned into his cheek by the half-score miles of gallop, Vane came trotting along behind him.

"Vane," said Mr. Marlboro', after he had saluted Éloise as warmly as he dared, "this is your mistress."

And Éloise felt her fetters close miserably upon her. This had been his device to know if he had dreamed or not on the night before, to detect whether his joy were solid truth or mounting laudanum-fumes. But as for Vane, so soon as his bow was made and homage paid, he fled away round the corner and lost himself in Hazel's happy arms.

At dinner that day the ladies rose early, as they were to dress for a wedding-party that awaited them some miles away. Just as Éloise, who was the last, passed out of the door which Mr. St. George held open, he produced from somewhere and placed in her hand a braided trencher of broad vine and fig-leaves that bore a mass of strange and beautiful growth. Scarcely had she plunged taper fingers between the scented layers, when a box with Mr. Marlboro's compliments was delivered, which, on being laughingly opened, proved to hold rare wreaths of pinky buds and bells.

Four gray walls and four gray towers

Overlook a space of flowers,"

hummed Lottie; but Mr. St. George was consummately oblivious, and returned to his friends. Why it fell out, that, when Miss Changarnier came floating down the staircase again, robed in something thin, white, and glittering as the hoar-frost itself, the darkness of her hair was twined neither with the roseate Marlboro' bells, nor yet with the long acacia-sprays whose golden balls should have expanded and bloomed in the light and heat till they seemed like fragrant drops of lustre, Miss Changarnier could best tell for herself.