CHAPTER LIX. A VERY BRIEF DREAM.
Julia was seldom happier than when engaged in preparing for a coming guest. There was a blended romance and fuss about it all that she liked. She liked to employ her fancy in devising innumerable little details, she liked the active occupation itself, and she liked best of all that storied web of thought in which she connected the expected one with all that was to greet him. How he would be pleased with this; what he would think of that? Would he leave that chair or that table where she had placed it? Would he like that seat in the window, and the view down the glen, as she hoped he might? Would the new-comer, in fact, fall into the same train of thought and mind as she had who herself planned and executed all around him?
Thus thinking was it that, with the aid of a stout Dalmatian peasant-girl, she busied herself with preparations for Augustus Bramleigh's arrival. She knew all his caprices about the room he liked to occupy. How he hated much furniture, and loved space and freedom; how he liked a soft and tempered light, and that the view from his window should range over some quiet, secluded bit of landscape, rather than take in what recalled life and movement and the haunts of men.
She was almost proud of the way she saw into people's natures by the small dropping preferences they evinced for this or that, and had an intense pleasure in meeting the coming fancy. At the present moment, too, she was glad to busy herself in any mode rather than dwell on the thoughts that the first interval of rest would be sure to bring before her. She saw that Jack Bramleigh was displeased with her, and, though not without some misgivings, she was vexed that he alone of all should resent the capricious moods of a temper resolutely determined to take the sunniest path in existence, and make the smaller worries of life but matter for banter.
“He mistakes me altogether,” said she, aloud, but speaking to herself, “if he imagines that I 'm in love with poverty and all its straits; but I 'm not going to cry over them for all that. They may change me in many ways. I can't help that. Want is an ugly old hag, and one cannot sit opposite her without catching a look of her features; but she 'll not subdue my courage, nor make me afraid to meet her eye. Here, Gretchen, help me with this great chest of drawers. We must get rid of it out of this, wherever it goes.” It was a long and weary task, and tried their strength to the last limit; and Julia threw herself into a deep-cushioned chair when it was over, and sighed heavily. “Have you a sweetheart, Gretchen?” she asked, just to lead the girl to talk, and relieve the oppression that she felt would steal over her. Yes, Gretchen had a sweetheart, and he was a fisherman, and he had a fourth share in a “bragotza;” and when he had saved enough to buy out two of his comrades he was to marry her; and Gretchen was very fond, and very hopeful, and very proud of her lover, and altogether took a very pleasant view of life, though it was all of it in expectancy. Then Gretchen asked if the signorina had not a sweetheart, and Julia, after a pause,—and it was a pause in which her color came and went,—said, “No!” And Gretchen drew nigh, and stared at her with her great hazel eyes, and read in her now pale face that the “No” she had uttered had its own deep meaning; for Gretchen, though a mere peasant, humble and illiterate, was a woman, and had a woman's sensibility under all that outward ruggedness.
“Why do you look at me so, Gretchen?” asked Julia.
“Ah, signorina,” sighed she, “I am sorry—I am very sorry! It is a sad thing not to be loved.”
“So it is, Gretty; but every day is not as nice and balmy and fresh as this, and yet we live on, and, taking one with the other, find life pretty enjoyable, after all!” The casuistry of her speech made no convert. How could it?—it had not any weight with herself.
The girl shook her head mournfully, and gazed at her with sad eyes, but not speaking a word. “I thought, signorina,” said she, at last, “that the handsome prince—”