He corresponded with her regularly through the winter and spring and the early summer; and noted the great improvement she was making.
There was one thing, however, that very much annoyed him in her letters. She always sent her “love to dear David Lindsay.” But he took care to translate this into “kind remembrance,” and to send back David’s “respects.” So the gulf widened and widened between the hearts of the children.
But David’s time was yet to come.
Then, on the first of July, when the midsummer holidays were about to commence, he went to the city again, took his child out from her prison and carried her off to the Greenbriar White Sulphur Springs to give her a glimpse of the glorious mountain scenery, and an insight into the great world of society. Here the handsome young widower, the heroic young officer, with the laurels won in Mexico yet green in the memories of all, might have become the hero of the season; but nothing could win him away from his “child.” He rode and drove with her through the wild and beautiful forest and mountain scenery. He read with her, sang duets with her, played ten-pins with her, and generally “made a fool of himself about her,” as more than one aggravated matron with marriageable daughters declared. In September he took his child back to her school just a year older, and several years more experienced than she had been when she first entered the institution.
And now he had reason to congratulate himself on one thing. His ward’s interest in the poor fisher-boy was evidently dying out, as he had first said it would. It was well enough that they should have played together as little children, and he had not therefore interfered to prevent them. He was too tender-hearted indeed to have given them so much pain. But now, at last, it was all ended, as it should be.
The first year was a type of all that followed while she remained at the “Sacred Heart.” Every Christmas her young uncle would go and take her from the school and spend the holidays with her at a hotel, taking her to places of amusement suitable to her age; and at the end of the holidays replacing her at school and returning to his own home.
Every June he would go and take her for the midsummer vacation, and travel with her to some delightful summer resort among the mountains, or on the lake shores, returning her to her convent early in September, and then repairing to his own estate.
Sometimes his mother would write and ask him to bring his young ward and join her circle at Newport, or Niagara, or wherever they might have decided to spend their summer season.
But Colonel de Crespigney always found some good excuse for politely declining the invitation.
The very truth was that Marcel preferred to have his little Glo’ all to himself during these long midsummer vacations.