CHAPTER XVIII.
It was a beautiful July afternoon, the air musical with midsummer hum, the flowers basking in the sunshine, the turf cool and green in the shade, and the breeze redolent of indescribable freshness and sweetness compounded of all fragrant odours, the present legacy of a past day’s shower. Like the flowers themselves, Albinia was feeling the delicious repose of refreshed nature, as in her pretty pink muslin, her white drapery folded round her, and her bright hair unbonnetted, she sat reclining in a low garden chair, at the door of the conservatory, a little pale, a little weak, but with a sweet happy languor, a soft tender bloom.
There was a step in the conservatory, and before she could turn round, her brother Maurice bent over her, and kissed her.
‘Maurice! you have come after all!’
‘Yes, the school inspection is put off. How are you?’ as he sat down on the grass by her side.
‘Oh, quite well! What a delicious afternoon we shall have! Edmund will be at home directly. Mrs. Meadows has absolutely let Gilbert take her to drink tea at the Drurys! Only I am sorry Sophy should miss you, for she was so good about going, because Lucy wanted to do something to her fernery. Of course you are come for Sunday, and the christening?’
‘Yes,—that is, to throw myself on Dusautoy’s mercy.’
‘We will send Mr. Hope to Fairmead,’ said Albinia, ‘and see whether Winifred can make him speak. We can’t spare the Vicar, for he is our godfather, and you must christen the little maiden.’
‘I thought the three elder ones were to be sponsors.’
‘Gilbert is shy,’ said Albinia, ‘afraid of the responsibility, and perhaps he is almost too near, the very next to ourselves. His father would have preferred Mr. Dusautoy from the first, and only yielded to my wish. I wish you had come two minutes sooner, she was being paraded under that wall, but now she is gone in asleep.’