The moment they had disappeared the lady turned to me.
“Why didn’t you keep by your friend?” she asked, rather sharply. “From what he tells me, you are in need of one.”
I hung my head and broke into sobs. She was softened immediately.
“There,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be harsh; but discretion was so necessary. Will you come with me—I am the Lady Sophia Rowe—and we can discuss your case in safety at home? But every instant means peril, and we must hasten.”
I suffered her to hurry me up the lane. Her gait took no grace from urgency, being awkward as with most over-tall women, and the worse to view because she was reckless how she raised her skirts. In a little we came round a curve that swept beyond the limits of the green; and here, under some trees, we found her coach, which had been ordered round earlier, with the priest and his great folio ensconced glowering in it. In a moment we were in, and rolling along quiet country roads. The noise of the fairing died behind us. The world of new peace and beatitude lay before. For seven miles we sped soberly on, deeper and deeper into the pleasant hush, that was broken only by the incessant confidential murmuring of my companions.
At last, taking a road high above a little village bowered in trees, we turned between beautiful scrolled gates into a drive that seemed to me to pierce gardens as enchanting as the hanging ones of Babylon. There were soft lawns and placid groves of timber, with lofty rookeries. There were vivid parterres, and terraces stooping to blue depths, wheredown a little silver brook bubbled through mists of foliage. There were rose bowers, and great jars, like Plenty’s horn, brimming petunias. There was a mossy fountain, with lilies and goldfish, and a baby Triton in the midst spurting a jet to heaven. There were grassy walks, and beyond their vistas the eternal solace of distance. And, dominating all, there was the house.
At least it seemed less to command than to partake of the serenity of which it was the habitable nucleus—the human nest in the garden. It stood before us, not suddenly, but in quiet revelation, a simple old structure of red brick, unlaboured with ornament, unweighted of stone, a pleasant home for happiness set on a wide level platform of grass and gravel. My eyes had hardly accepted it before my heart.
We alighted into a fragrant hall, and madam led me at once into a large low room with windows bent upon a heavenly prospect of woods and meadows; and there, bidding me await her until she could come and talk with me, shut me in, and withdrew.
I had not stood many minutes, in a silent dream of wonder and expectation, when the door opened softly again, and a little girl stole in. She was about my own age, or somewhat older, and very dark and pretty, but with foolish large eyes like a dog’s. For some moments she stared at me, wondering, without a smile, then came and touched my hand.
“Madam sent me,” she said. “I live here. I am her adoption child. Are you come to stay?”