“Well, you shall have ample opportunity to do
so to-day. And oh! I promise you the sight
of the loveliest face that you can picture to yourself
when you think of your future wife.”
“My future wife, I hope, is not yet born,”
said Kenelm, wearily, and with much effort suppressing
a yawn. “But at all events, I will stay
till after two o’clock; for two o’clock,
I presume, means luncheon.”
Mrs. Braefield laughed. “You retain your
appetite?”
“Most single men do, provided they don’t
fall in love and become doubled up.”
At this abominable attempt at a pun, Mrs. Braefield
disdained to laugh; but turning away from its perpetrator
she took off her hat and gloves and passed her hands
lightly over her forehead, as if to smooth back some
vagrant tress in locks already sufficiently sheen and
trim. She was not quite so pretty in female attire
as she had appeared in boy’s dress, nor did
she look quite as young. In all other respects
she was wonderfully improved. There was a serener,
a more settled intelligence in her frank bright eyes,
a milder expression in the play of her parted lips.
Kenelm gazed at her with pleased admiration. And
as now, turning from the glass, she encountered his
look, a deeper colour came into the clear delicacy
of her cheeks, and the frank eyes moistened.
She came up to him as he sat, and took his hand in
both hers, pressing it warmly. “Ah, Mr.
Chillingly,” she said, with impulsive tremulous
tones, “look round, look round this happy, peaceful
home!—the life so free from a care, the
husband whom I so love and honour; all the blessings
that I might have so recklessly lost forever had I
not met with you, had I been punished as I deserved.
How often I thought of your words, that ’you
would be proud of my friendship when we met again’!
What strength they gave me in my hours of humbled
self-reproach!” Her voice here died away as if
in the effort to suppress a sob.
She released his hand, and, before he could answer,
passed quickly through the open sash into the garden.
THE children have come,—some thirty of
them, pretty as English children generally are, happy
in the joy of the summer sunshine, and the flower
lawns, and the feast under cover of an awning suspended
between chestnut-trees, and carpeted with sward.
No doubt Kenelm held his own at the banquet, and did
his best to increase the general gayety, for whenever
he spoke the children listened eagerly, and when he
had done they laughed mirthfully.
“The fair face I promised you,” whispered
Mrs. Braefield, “is not here yet. I have
a little note from the young lady to say that Mrs.
Cameron does not feel very well this morning, but hopes
to recover sufficiently to come later in the afternoon.”
“And pray who is Mrs. Cameron?”
“Ah! I forgot that you are a stranger to
the place. Mrs. Cameron is the aunt with whom
Lily resides. Is it not a pretty name, Lily?”
