“No, no, we will stuff them into this silk work-bag, and tie them securely—let the child have all she values. I will send a maid to-morrow to pack, and forward everything to London.” After a pause, and a last look round, she added, “I have been very, very happy here, dear Frau, and I love your country—but I am leaving it in a few days,—never to return.”
The two women clasped hands, and Frau Hurter, the stony-faced, suddenly drew her fellow-sufferer into her bony embrace, and kissed her with a sort of dry and concentrated passion.
As Letty walked down the hill that lovely September evening, she halted for a farewell look at the gleaming lake and range of mountains—a scene beloved and familiar as the face of a dear friend. How many hundred times had she climbed this well-worn path—since the day she had first carried Cara to the farm! Here on this very spot, the little plateau under the pear trees, had Cara thrown her arms about her, assuring her with warm kisses that “she would never, never, never leave her own darling Mum!”
As a pair of sad eyes, rested on the matchless prospect, the sun was setting behind Pilatus,—who stood forth grim and rugged, against a flaming background of red and gold—a glorious afterglow spread itself over the slopes of the Rigi, changing its strata of granite to rose-colour, the intervening pastures to a cloudy blue. Then very gradually, as if by the touch of a magic wand, a delicate ethereal haze dissolved the entire scene into an exquisite shade of amethyst,—the curtain had fallen, and a glorious September day, was numbered with the past.
The air was still: the sleepy tinkling of a little stream, a far-away hoot of some steamer approaching a landing-stage, the faint sound of a chapel bell were the only sounds that broke a curiously reverent, and impressive silence.
Presently beautiful Hesperus, wrapped in her misty mantle, came gliding along the mountain-tops, and hung her bright star in the sky, and Letty continued her way.
Blagdon’s arrivals and departures were notoriously abrupt, and after a busy and exciting three days in Paris, he appeared in Hill Street with his unheralded companion; looking forward with a sort of brutal glee to ‘taking a splendid rise out of old Connie.’ He had merely announced his immediate return, ‘bringing a friend.’
It was eight o’clock when he entered his smoking-room, closely attended by Cara (who had been not a little impressed by her father’s wealth, the appearance of the home, and its group of silent, dignified men-servants—a home where she was to reign as mistress). Here, sunken in an arm-chair, with a dog on her lap, a cigarette in her mouth, a sporting paper in her hand, they discovered Lady Rashleigh. She was greatly changed; her figure was shapeless, her hair a foxy grey, her skin coarse, and deeply lined—altogether, especially in a shabby deshabille, she deservedly earned the adjective ‘Blowsy.’ Yet at race meetings, in a well-cut coat and handsome furs, Con Rashleigh was still regarded as a wonderful woman for sixty—pity she had let her figure go!
“Hullo, Blag!” she exclaimed, as she removed her cigarette, “so here you are! Have you seen this Handicap—why—who’s this?” surveying her niece with an aggressive stare. Hugo occasionally introduced startling acquaintances. “Who have we here?” throwing down the Pom, and rising heavily to her feet.