I was silent for a moment,—a moment of exquisite revery,—and then I asked if there were always people visitors at the Villa.
“I may say, sir, indeed, next to always. We haven't dined alone since March last.”
“How many usually come to dinner?”
“Five or seven, sir; always an odd number. Seldom more than seven, and never above eleven, except a state dinner to some great swell going through.”
“No ladies, of course?”
“Pardon me, sir. The Countess Vander Neeve dined here yesterday; Madam Van Straaten, and Mrs. Cleremont—Excuse me, sir, there's Sir Roger's bell. I must go and tell him you've arrived.”
When Nixon left me, I sat for full twenty minutes, like one walking out of a trance, and asking myself how much was real, and how much fiction, of all around me?
My eyes wandered over the room, and from the beautiful little Gothic clock on the mantelpiece to the gilded pineapple from which my bed-curtains descended,—everything seemed of matchless beauty to me. Could I ever weary of admiring them? Would they seem to me every morning as I awoke as tasteful and as elegant as now they appeared to me? Oh, if dear mamma could but see them! If she but knew with what honor I was received, would not the thought go far to assuage the grief our separation cost her? And, last of all, came the thought, if she herself were here to live with me, to read with me, to be my companion as she used to be,—could life offer anything to compare with such happiness? And why should not this be? If papa really should love me, why might I not lead him to see to whom I owed all that made me worthy of his love?
“Breakfast is served, sir, in the small breakfast-room,” said a servant, respectfully.
“You must show me where that is,” said I, rising to follow him.