Mr Riddell looked after her, watching her quick and vigorous step. Then he took off his glasses and wiped them.
“Poor Syl!” he said, as he turned away. “He must have much patience in seeking his Iris. She is in the distance—in the distance, as yet.”
Chapter Thirty.
“Ayont the Isle of Skye.”
“Cleverley Rectory.
“August 3rd.
“My dear Syl,—
“I found your letter very good reading. Thinking of you far away in Ultima Thule, in the scenes of that dearest of books to my youth, The Pirate, quite stirs my blood, and the Fitful Head and the Stones of Stennis come vividly into my mind. By the way, I hope you have ‘read’ The Pirate. If not, I will send you a shilling copy, that you and Lucian may remedy the defects of your education. Here we have been seeing a great deal of the four Haredale girls, and lately something of their mother, who joined them a few days ago. Lady Haredale is a wonderful woman. She has nearly made me believe her to be the most unselfish of people by the cheerful, matter-of-course way in which she accepts their ruined condition. Lord Haredale is abroad. She and the two elder girls are to pay some visits, and then join him. Kattern and Tory are to be sent to their aunt at Silverfold. Miss Carisbrooke is still with her, and her part in all the strange story I don’t understand. The girls are to go to classes at Saint Etheldred’s School. Tory has brains; but I am afraid she will be a fish out of water. I should not myself like to have charge of Miss Kattern; nor indeed of Una, though she is an interesting creature, and might do well in good hands. Poor child, she is likely to be in very bad ones, I fear. She has taken a great fancy to Miss Waterhouse, my old friend, who has been having a holiday here from her work among the East London wild girls and women. Una seems never to tire of hearing of them, and has undertaken to sew for them. I hope she may keep up with anything so practical. As for Amethyst, your father calls her a fine, brave, growing creature; but what a life lies before her! She has not half lived out her girlhood, in spite of all her troubles, and would be ready for all the wholesome interests and natural ambitions of clever, thoughtful girls. I have put her in the way of some correspondence-lessons in Latin and mathematics, and supplied her with the books. She means to work, when she can, with a view to a possible future. She is anxious to show that she is not all society beauty. But, dear me, how beautiful she is! I don’t see how her mind is to rival her face, and how she will be thrown away!
“I could find it in my heart to wish she had married the rich baronet; but your father shakes his head, and says ‘No.’ I believe the whole family are to meet in the south of France in the winter. Lady Haredale smiles, and says she can’t think what they are going to live on.
“My love to Lucian. How long do you stay with him?
“Your loving aunt,—
“Margaret Riddell.”
Sylvester read this letter as he and Lucian lay on the short fine turf of a bluff headland in the Isle of Orkney, not far from Kirkwall, looking over the northern sea, now blue and dancing in summer sunshine. The air was sweet, clear, and bracing; white sea-birds floated over the sparkling waves; a lark sang high in the pure sharp air; the charm of spring had hardly yet departed from the far advanced summer; tiny flowers sprinkled the down, and the little hardy black-faced lambs that cropped them, were still in the prettiest stage of their youth.
“My education is in advance of the shilling copy,” said Sylvester, reading the first sentence of his letter aloud; and then, after a moment’s hesitation, passing it to his companion.
When he had answered Lucian’s letter of invitation to join him at Oban, he had briefly acknowledged the truth of the guess indicated by the return of the photograph; but since then no word on the subject, so near the hearts of both, had passed between them.