“You and Graham were once playmates.”
“And do you remember that?” she questioned
in her turn.
“No doubt he will remember it also,” said
I.
“I have not asked him: few things would
surprise me so much as to find that he did. I
suppose his disposition is still gay and careless?”
“Was it so formerly? Did it so strike you?
Do you thus remember him?”
“I scarcely remember him in any other light.
Sometimes he was studious; sometimes he was merry:
but whether busy with his books or disposed for play,
it was chiefly the books or game he thought of; not
much heeding those with whom he read or amused himself.”
“Yet to you he was partial.”
“Partial to me? Oh, no! he had other playmates—his
school-fellows; I was of little consequence to him,
except on Sundays: yes, he was kind on Sundays.
I remember walking with him hand-in-hand to St. Mary’s,
and his finding the places in my prayer-book; and how
good and still he was on Sunday evenings! So
mild for such a proud, lively boy; so patient with
all my blunders in reading; and so wonderfully to be
depended on, for he never spent those evenings from
home: I had a constant fear that he would accept
some invitation and forsake us; but he never did,
nor seemed ever to wish to do it. Thus, of course,
it can be no more. I suppose Sunday will now
be Dr. Bretton’s dining-out day....?”
“Children, come down!” here called Mrs.
Bretton from below. Paulina would still have
lingered, but I inclined to descend: we went down.
THE LITTLE COUNTESS.
Cheerful as my godmother naturally was, and entertaining
as, for our sakes, she made a point of being, there
was no true enjoyment that evening at La Terrasse,
till, through the wild howl of the winter-night,
were heard the signal sounds of arrival. How often,
while women and girls sit warm at snug fire-sides,
their hearts and imaginations are doomed to divorce
from the comfort surrounding their persons, forced
out by night to wander through dark ways, to dare stress
of weather, to contend with the snow-blast, to wait
at lonely gates and stiles in wildest storms, watching
and listening to see and hear the father, the son,
the husband coming home.
Father and son came at last to the chateau: for
the Count de Bassompierre that night accompanied Dr.
Bretton. I know not which of our trio heard the
horses first; the asperity, the violence of the weather
warranted our running down into the hall to meet and
greet the two riders as they came in; but they warned
us to keep our distance: both were white—two
mountains of snow; and indeed Mrs. Bretton, seeing
their condition, ordered them instantly to the kitchen;
prohibiting them, at their peril, from setting foot
on her carpeted staircase till they had severally
put off that mask of Old Christmas they now affected.
Into the kitchen, however, we could not help following
them: it was a large old Dutch kitchen, picturesque
and pleasant. The little white Countess danced
in a circle about her equally white sire, clapping
her hands and crying, “Papa, papa, you look
like an enormous Polar bear.”
