“Oh, uncle!”
“My dear, I am speaking fact, not flattery. Anna is beautiful; we will grant that; but she is of that large, fair style, so rare in our country that it made her a belle there, but which is too common here to make her more than one of the pretty women of the season. On the contrary, your style, Drusilla, more common in America, is extremely rare here. You will be new. You will make what women call a ‘sensation.’ Alick will see it, and he will discover his folly, if he never finds out his sin in having left you. There, Drusilla! there is the old man’s policy, worthy of a manœuvering chaperon, is it not?”
Drusilla knew not what to reply. For her own part she didn’t like anything that savored of “policy.” She longed—oh, how intensely!—for a reconciliation with her husband; it was her one thought by day, her one dream by night, her one aspiration in life! but she did not want it brought about by any sort of manœuvering. Perhaps the General read her thoughts, for he said earnestly:
“I see you do not quite approve my plan, dear child. You would rather Alick’s own better nature should bring him back to his wife and babe; but ah, my dear, who can appeal to that better nature so successfully as yourself? and how can you ever appeal to it unless you have him to yourself? And how can you have him, unless you attract him in the way I suggest. Let him see you appreciated by others, that he may learn to appreciate you himself. Let him seek you because others admire you; and then when you have him again, you may trust your own love to win his heart forever!—But here is Dick, and, bless me, yes; here are all the Seymours, at his heels!”
Colonel Seymour and his family entered, marshalled in by Dick. And there were cordial morning salutations and hand-shakings.
The carriages were waiting. Drusilla ran off to call Anna and to put on her own bonnet.
And in a few minutes the whole party started on their sight-seeing excursion.
The programme of the day was carried out. They went just to Westminster Abbey and saw there the wonders and beauties of several successive orders of architecture. They saw the most ancient chapel of Edward the Confessor, containing the tomb of that Royal Saint, and the old coronation chair and other memorials of the Saxon kings, and the remains of many of their Norman successors.
They saw the splendid chapel of Henry the Seventh, with the beautiful tomb of that fierce paladin, conqueror of Richard Third, and founder of the sanguinary Tudor dynasty; and of his meek consort, Elizabeth of York, surnamed the Good. And there also they saw, oh strange juxtaposition! the tombs of that beautiful Mary Stuart, and of her rival and destroyer, the ruthless Elizabeth Tudor; and the tombs of many other royal and noble celebrities besides.
And they examined many other chapels, filled with the monuments and memorials of kings and queens, knights and ladies, heroes and martyrs, poets and philosophers, who had adorned the history of the country and of the world, from the foundation of the Abbey to the present time.