"O Helen, fair beyond compare!
I'll make a garland of thy hair,
Shall bind my heart for evermair,
Until the day I die!"
Across the lawn the shadows move slowly, and with a vague grace that
adds to their charm. The birds are drowsy from the heat, and, sitting
half hidden in the green branches, chant their songs in somewhat lazy
fashion. All nature has succumbed to the fierce power of Phoebus
Apollo.
"The morn is merry June, I trow:
The rose is budding fain."
Each flower in the sunlit garden is holding up its head, and breathing
fragrant sighs as the hours slip by, unheeded, yet full of a vague
delight.
Miss Peyton, in her white gown, and with some soft rich roses lying on
her lap, is leaning back in a low chair in the deep embrasure of the
window, making a poor attempt at working.
Her father, with a pencil in his hand, and some huge volumes spread
out before him, is making a few desultory notes. Into the library--the
coseyest, if not the handsomest, room at Gowran--the hot sun is
rushing, dancing lightly over statuettes and pictures, and lingering
with pardonable delay upon Clarissa's bowed head.
"Who is this coming up the avenue?" she says, presently, in slow,
sleepy tones, that suit the day. "It is--no, it isn't--and yet it
is--it must be James Scrope!"
"I dare say. He was to have returned yesterday. He would come here as
soon as possible, of course." Rising, he joins her at the window, and
watches the coming visitor as he walks his horse leisurely down the
drive.
"What a dear little modest speech!" says Miss Peyton, maliciously.
"Now, if I had been the author of it, I know some one who would have
called me vain! But I will generously let that pass. How brown Jim has
grown! Has he not?"
"Has he? I can scarcely see so far. What clear eyes you must have,
child, and what a faithful memory to recollect him without hesitation,
after all these years!"
"I never forget," says Clarissa, simply, which is quite the truth.
"And he has altered hardly anything. He was always so old, you know,
he really couldn't grow much older. What is his age now, papa?
Ninety?"
"Something over thirty, I fancy," says papa, uncertainly.
"Oh, nonsense!" says Miss Peyton. "Surely you romance, or else you are
an invaluable friend. When I grow brown and withered, I hope you will
prove equally good to me. I shall expect you to say all sorts of
impossible things, and not to blush when saying them. Ah!--here is Sir
James" as the door opens, and Scrope--healthy and bronzed from
foreign travel--enters quietly, staid and calm as ever.
When he has shaken hands with, and been warmly welcomed by, Mr.
Peyton, he turns with some diffidence towards the girl in the clinging
white gown, who is smiling at him from the window, with warm red lips,
half parted and some faint amusement in her friendly eyes.
"Why, you have forgotten me," she says, presently, in a low tone of
would-be reproach. "While I--I knew you at once."
"I have not forgotten," says Scrope, taking her hand and holding it,
as though unconsciously. "I was only surprised, puzzled. You are so
changed. All seems so different. A little child when last I saw you,
and now a lady grown."
"Oh, yes, I am quite grown up," says Miss Peyton, demurely. "I can't
do any more of that sort of thing, to oblige anybody,--even though
papa--who adores a Juno, and thinks all women should be divinely
tall--has often asked me to try. But," maliciously, "are you not going
to ask me how I have progressed (isn't that the right word?) with my
studies? You ought, you know, as it was you who sent me to school."
"I?" says Sir James, rather taken aback at this unexpected onslaught.
"Yes, you," repeats she, with a little nod. "Papa would never have had
the cruelty even to think of such a thing. I am glad you have still
sufficient grace left to blush for your evil conduct. Do you
remember," with a gay laugh, "what a terrible scolding I gave you
before leaving home?"
"I shall remember it to my dying day," says Sir James. "I was never so
thoroughly frightened before, or since. Then and there, I registered a
vow never again to interfere with any one's daughter."
"I hope you will keep that vow," says Miss Peyton, with innocent
malice, and a smile only half suppressed, that torments him in memory
for many a day. And then George Peyton asks some question, and
presently Sir James is telling him certain facts about the Holy Land,
and Asia generally, that rather upset his preconceived ideas.
"Yet I still believe it must be the most interesting spot on earth,"
he says, still clinging to old thoughts and settled convictions.
"Well, it's novel, you know, and the fashion, and that," says Sir
James, rather vaguely. "In fact, you are nowhere nowadays if you
haven't done the East; but it's fatiguing, there isn't a doubt. The
people aren't as nice as they might be, and honesty is not considered
the best policy out there, and dirt is the prevailing color, and
there's a horrid lot of sand."
"What a dismal ending!" says Clarissa, in a tone suggestive of
disappointment. "But how lovely it looks in pictures!--I don't mean
the sand, exactly, but the East."
"Most things do. There is an old grandaunt of mine hung in the gallery
at Scrope----"
"How shocking!" interrupted Miss Peyton, with an affected start. "And
in the house, too! So unpleasant! Did she do it herself, or who hanged
her?"
"Her picture, you know," says Scrope, with a laugh. "To hear that she
had made away with herself would be too good to be true. She looks
absolutely lovely in this picture I speak of, almost too fine for this
work-a-day world; yet my father always told me she was ugly as a
nightmare. Never believe in paint."
"Talking of Scrope," says Clarissa, "do you know, though I have been
home now for some months, I have never been through it since I was a
child? I have rather a passion for revisiting old haunts, and I want
to see it again. That round room in the tower used to be my special
joy. Will you show it to me?--some day?--any day?"
"What day will you come?" asks Scrope, thinking it unnecessary to
express the gladness it will be to him to point put the beauties of
his home to this new-old friend,--this friend so full of fresh and
perfect beauty, yet so replete with all the old graces and witcheries
of the child he once so fondly loved.
"I am just the least little bit in the world afraid of Miss Scrope,"
says Clarissa, with an irrepressible smile. "So I shall prefer to come
some time when you are in. On Thursday, if that will suit you. Or
Friday; or, if not then, why, Saturday."
"Make it Thursday. That day comes first," said Scrope.
"Now, that is a very pretty speech," declares Miss Peyton, vast
encouragement in her tone. "Eastern air, in spite of its drawbacks,
has developed your intellect, Jim. Hasn't it?"
The old familiar appellation, and the saucy smile that has always in
it something of tenderness, smites some half-forgotten chord in
Scrope's heart. He makes no reply, but gazes with an earnestness that
almost amounts to scrutiny at Clarissa, as she stands in the open
window leaning against a background of ivy, through which pale
rose-buds are struggling into view. Within her slender fingers the
knitting-needles move slowly, glinting and glistening in the sun's hot
rays, until they seem to emit tiny flashes as they cross and recross
each other. Her eyes are downcast, the smile still lingers on her
lips, her whole attitude, and her pretty graceful figure, clad in its
white gown, is
"Like a picture rich and rare."
"On Thursday, then, I shall see you," he says, not because he has
tired of looking at her, but because she has raised her eyes and is
evidently wondering at his silence. "Good-by."
"Good-by," says Clarissa, genially. Then she lays down the neglected
knitting (that, indeed, is more a pretence than a reality), and comes
out into the middle of the room. "For the sake of old days I shall see
you to the hall door," she says, brightly. "No, papa, do not ring: I
myself shall do the honors to Jim."