‘Are you ill? Bertha says everybody here is ill. I hope you are not.’
‘No, thank you,’ was the reply. ‘I am here with my uncle and aunt. It is my uncle who has been unwell.’
Bertha, afraid that Maria might blunder into a history of her malady, began to talk fast of the landscape and its beauties. The stranger seemed to understand her desire to lead away from herself, and readily responded, with a manner that gave sweetness to all she said. She was not very young-looking, and Maria’s notion might be justified that she was at Hyères on her own account, for there was hardly a tint of colour on her cheek; she was exceedingly spare and slender, and there was a wasted, worn look about the lower part of her face, and something subdued in her expression, as if some great, lasting sorrow had passed over her. Her eyes were large, brown, soft, and full of the same tender, pensive kindness as her voice and smile; and perhaps it was this air of patient suffering that above all attracted Bertha, in the soreness of her wounded spirit, just as the affectionateness gained Maria, with the instinct of a child.
However it might be, Phœbe, who had become uneasy at their absence, and only did not go to seek them from the conviction that nothing would set them so completely astray as not finding her at her post, was exceedingly amazed to be hailed by them from beneath instead of above, and to see them so amicably accompanied by a stranger. Maria went on in advance to greet the newly-recovered sister, and tell their adventure; and Bertha, as she saw Phœbe’s pretty, grateful, self-possessed greeting, rejoiced that their friend should see that one of the three, at least, knew what to say, and could say it. As they all crept down together through the rugged streets, Phœbe felt the same strange attraction as her sisters, accompanied by a puzzling idea that she had seen the young lady before, or some one very like her. Phœbe was famous for seeing likenesses; and never forgetting a face she had once seen, her recognitions were rather a proverb in the family; and she felt her credit almost at stake in making out the countenance before her; but it was all in vain, and she was obliged to resign herself to discuss the
Pyrenees, where it appeared that their new friend had been spending the summer.
At the inn-door they parted, she going along a corridor to her aunt’s rooms, and the three Fulmorts hurrying simultaneously to Miss Charlecote to narrate their adventure. She was as eager as they to know the name of their rescuer, and to go to thank her; and ringing for the courier, sent him to make inquiries. ‘Major and Mrs. Holmby, and their niece,’ was the result; and the next measure was Miss Charlecote’s setting forth to call on them in their apartments, and all the three young ladies wishing to accompany her—even Bertha! What could this encounter have done to her? Phœbe withdrew her claim at once, and persuaded Maria to remain, with the promise that her new friend should be invited to enjoy the exhibition of the book of Swiss costumes; and very soon she was admiring them, after having received an explanation sufficient to show her how to deal with Maria’s peculiarities. Mrs. Holmby, a commonplace, good-natured woman, evidently knew who all the other party were, and readily made acquaintance with Miss Charlecote, who had, on her side, the same strange impression of knowing the name as Phœbe had of knowing the face.
Bertha, who slept in the same room with Phœbe, awoke her in the morning with the question, ‘What do you think is Miss Holmby’s name?’
‘I did not hear it mentioned.’
‘No, but you ought to guess. Do you not see how names impress their own individuality? You need not laugh; I know they do. Could you possibly have been called Augusta, and did not Katherine quite pervade Miss Fennimore?’
‘Well, according to your theory, what is her name?’