"She is every inch a Stone, Elizabeth, and not a bit like her chicken-hearted father."
"That's true, Timothy, but she grows plainer every day, and looks nearly as old as I do."
"Yes, she is no Hebe; but had the blooming goddess been possessed of her wits, she would have blind-folded Jupiter."
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE ISLET-GEMMED ST. LAWRENCE.
On a morning late in December Mrs. Gower sat alone in her pretty restful library, with its olive-green velvet cushions and hangings, its water-lilies, like the beauties in our bay, with their green stalks and leaves painted on the panelled walls, its English ivy trained up and around the Queen Anne mantel, with graceful palms standing on either side of the floral blossoms on the stand. The occupant looks well in a close-fitting gown of navy blue flannel, embroidered in rose silk; there is a half-smile on the lips, and the dreaminess of some tender thought in the dark eyes, as she idly opens and closes a black lace fan, with a spray of honeysuckle painted thereon. A gentleman's card lay beside her work-basket on the table.
"So Alexander Blair is his name," she thought; "how very, very long," with a sigh, "it has taken to come to me—his name, of course, I mean." She thought, with a smile, putting the card to her lips, "how foolish of me, but I have always had that way. I remember travelling to Port Elgin, from Toronto, and on my arrival, my trunk, containing my dearest treasures, was not forthcoming. I was wild with grief, when, after enriching the telegraph offices, at the expense of my purse, in three days it was again in my possession; and what did I do, why kissed and fondled both trunk and key. Elaine Gower, you are a foolish, impressionable woman. And so I dropped my fan at the Grand, last night. His card says, 'With compliments, dropped at the theatre.' He scarcely seemed a stranger seated beside me at 'Erminie,' and I feel sure he felt likewise. How handsome he is, or rather how essentially manly, with the look of strength in his broad shoulders, and of honesty of purpose in his fearless, blue eyes. He is iron-grey, and slightly bald, I noticed, when he stooped to pick up my handkerchief, but his beard and moustache are brown. He is decidedly dark; I wonder if Highland Scotch; for dark, and true, and tender are the North. His name suits him. I like them both for old association's sake, one being the maiden name of one whose memory is sacred, the other, the Christian name of my loved dead. I wonder what poor Charlie Cole would think of my having made his acquaintance in this romantic fashion. I remember, he also had had instantaneous photographs, as we laughingly called them, of a young lady who had interested him."
At this moment Miss Crew, entering, in walking costume, said:
"I met the letter-carrier as I came in, Mrs. Gower, and here is your share."