Page:Watch and Ward (Boston, Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1878).djvu/124

Rh "She is growing, you may depend upon it."

"Of course she is; and yet," said Roger, discriminatingly, "there is a kind of girlish freshness, a childish simplicity, in her style."

"Strongly marked," said Hubert, laughing. I "have just got a letter from her you would take to be written by a child of ten."

"You have a letter?"

"It came an hour ago. Let me read it."

"Had you written to her?"

"Not a word. But you will see." And Hubert in his dressing-gown, standing before the fire, with the same silver-sounding accents Nora had admired, distilled her own gentle prose into Roger's attentive ear.

"'I have not forgotten your asking me to write to you about your beloved Pincian view. Indeed, I have been daily reminded of it by having that same view continually before my eyes. From my own window I see the same dark Rome, the same blue Campagua. I have rigorously performed my promise, however, of ascending to your little terrace. I have an old German friend here, a perfect archaeologist in petticoats, in whose company I think as little of climbing to terraces and towers as of diving into catacombs and crypts. We chose the finest day of the winter, and made the pilgrimage together. The plaster-merchant is still in the basement. We saw him in his doorway, standing to dry, whitened over as if he meant personally to be cast. We reached your terrace in safety. It was flooded with light,—you know the Roman light,—the yellow and the purple. A young painter who occupies your rooms had set up his easel