"Not if I can help' you, dear Lady," replied Ida Mara, "or sing to you, or amuse you. The best air I can have is your own looks, when you are happy."
"That cannot be now," replied the Lady Arabella; "but I am going to write to the King; so that I shall not want you for the next hour."
The girl bent her head, and remained upon the terrace; and the two ladies returned through the trees to the house.
Ida Mara took one or two turns, pausing from time to time to gaze upon the different boats, which, with sails or oars, as the wind favoured them, skimmed fast over the shining surface of the water. In a minute or two, the wherry we have mentioned cut across from the stairs at Westminster, and passed close under the terrace, the man who was in it raising his head as far as possible, and examining the fair Italian with apparently curious eyes.
He went on some hundred yards beyond the garden wall, but then turned, and suffered his boat to drop slowly down, the tide just beginning to ebb, till it came opposite the centre of the gardens, where he stopped, turning the head of the boat to the stream, and, like a trout at the tail of a ripple, keeping himself from being carried further on by a scarcely perceptible stroke of the oars.
In a minute after, Ida passed the spot in her walk; and the boatman exclaimed, "Hist! hist!"
She started, and looked down upon him; but he was a man of middle age, with his hair somewhat grey; and though he was dressed as a common waterman, there was something distinguished in his appearance which belied his apparel.
"What are your wishes, sir?' said Ida Mara, approaching the edge of the terrace.
"Is this Sir Alexander Marchmont's house?" asked the man.
"No," replied Ida Mara; "it is Sir Thomas Parry's."