Within a few weeks after, a passage in the “Gazette” announced that Viscount Lackington had been honored with the Bath, and named Aide-de-camp to the Queen. It is not for poor chroniclers like ourselves to obtrude upon good fortune like this, and destroy, by attempted description, all that constitutes its real happiness. The impertinence that presses itself in personal visits on those who seek seclusion is only equalled by that which would endeavor to make history of moments too sacred for recording.
Our story opened of a lovely morning in autumn,—it closes of an evening in the same mellow season, and in the self-same spot, too, the Lake of Como. Long motionless shadows stretched across the calm lake as, many-colored, from the tints of the surrounding woods, it lay bathed in the last rays of a rich sunset. It was the hour when, loaded with perfume, the air moves languidly through the leaves and the grass, and a sense of tender sadness seems to pervade nature. Was it to watch the last changes of the rich coloring, as from a rose pink the mountain summits grew a deep crimson, then faded again to violet, and, after a few minutes of deepest blue, darkened into night, that a small group was gathered silently on the lake terrace of the Villa d'Este? They were but three,—a lady and two gentlemen. She, seated a little apart from the others, appeared to watch the scene before her with intense interest, bending down her head at moments as if to listen, and then resuming her former attitude.
The younger of the men seemed to participate in her anxiety,—if such it could be called,—and peered no less eagerly through the gathering gloom that now spread over the lake. The elder, a short, thick-set figure, displayed his impatience in many a hurried walk of a few paces, and a glance, quick and short, over the water. None of them spoke a word. At last the short man asked, in a gruff, coarse tone, “Are you quite sure she said it was this evening they were to arrive?”
“Quite sure; she read the letter over for me. Besides, my sister Georgina makes no mistakes of this kind, and she 'd not have moved off to Lugano so suddenly if she was not convinced that they would be here to-night.”
“Well, I will say your grand folk have their own notions of gratitude as they have of everything else. She owes these people the enjoyment of a capital income, which, out of delicacy, they have left her for her life, and the mode she takes to acknowledge the favor is by avoiding to meet them.”
“And what more natural!” broke in the lady's voice. “Can she possibly forget that they have despoiled her of her title, her station, her very name? In her place, I feel I should have done exactly the same.”
“That's true,” burst out the younger man. “Lizzy is right. But for them, Georgina had still been the Viscountess Lackington.”
“You have a right to feel it that way,” laughed out the short man, scornfully. “You are both in the same boat as herself, only that they have n't left you twelve hundred per annum!”
“I hear a boat now; yes, I can mark the sound of the oars,” said the lady.
“What a jolly change would a good squall now make in your fortunes!” said the short man. “A puff of wind and a few gallons of water are small things to stand between a man and twelve thousand a year!”