Late in the day, Miss de Crespigney said to the young lady:
“You must make your uncle take you to Washington for the season, my dear. It is not right that you should be buried in your youth in this remote and solitary home. You are the Countess de la Vera, and should be brought in society suited to your rank. My sister-in-law, Madame de Crespigney, will be in Washington this winter. She has no unmarried daughters of her own, and I am sure she would feel honored to chaperone the Countess Gloria. Make your uncle take you to Washington this winter, my dear.”
“Oh, Aunt Agrippina, I thank you for your kindness in thinking about me so much, and I assure you that Marcel would do anything to please me without being made to do it; but really I do want to stay home and be quiet this winter. Ever since I left school—the first of July—I have been going to places all the time. I am so tired of going to so many places and seeing so many things. I don’t want to go away again for ever so long. I want to stay here and see all my dee-ar old friends and live the dee-ar old times over again,” pleaded Gloria.
“My child, you can never live the old times over again any more than you can go back to your baby-hood and live that over again. And as for old friends, Gloria, you have none.”
“Oh, yes! there is dee-ar Granny Lindsay and David Lindsay!”
“Not the right sort of friends for the Countess de la Vera. But there is all the more reason why you should go to Washington. I will speak to my nephew again on the subject,” said Miss de Crespigney.
And she did speak to the colonel that same afternoon, but without effect.
No doubt if she had stayed longer she might have gained her point,
“For if a man talk a very long time,” &c.
I have quoted that piece of wisdom already. Miss de Crespigney had not “a very long time” to “talk.” She was to leave Promontory Hall the next morning.