He looked up for a moment, to read in one full, rapid gaze, the expression of my countenance, and then dropped his eyes once more upon the book, but not before I had noticed that his cheek was flushed. Whether in anger or in pleasure I know not, for his eyes are so shadowed by his dark, straight eyebrows, which meet across the nose, that it is only in certain aspects you can read what is passing in them. What there could be in my reply either to anger or to please him, I cannot guess; but he changed the subject, and I could not interrogate him, as mama came up at that moment, nor have I dared since. All I can say is, that if he was angry he had quite forgotten it; and if he was pleased he is perfectly ungrateful.
This little incident is all I have to relate. Imagine what our life must be when that is an incident; and yet, as Julius says, "it is not events but emotions which make life important; and events are only prized inasmuch as they excite emotions."
Your affectionate friend,
ROSE VYNER.
P.S.—Now, don't you misinterpret a fact which strikes me in reading this letter over, namely, that one name occurs very frequently. It is purely owing to the want of any subject to write about. Don't imagine it otherwise.
CHAPTER III.
CECIL IS SMITTEN.
MY DEAR FRANK,
Your complaint respecting the omissions of my letter was not very generous, considering the length of the aforesaid letter. However, I will now tell you what I didn't tell you then—that there is endless fishing and famous preserves; so you may cultivate Vyner with perfect safety, though excuse me if I doubt your success.
The hall is, as I told you, formidably rococo, or rather moyen age; but handsome of the kind, and spacious. The Italian terrace in front of the house has the trim beauty of such things, but is spoiled by a want of "keeping;" the balustrades are griffinesque, and yet there are copies of the Greek statues in the garden!
A rich embowering shrubbery leads you down to the river, which brawls through the property; beyond, on the other side, there is a lovely wood, which skirts the banks of the river, and affords a most romantic promenade. I should have certainly been most poetically touched the first day I went there, had it not been for the saucy merriment of that liveliest of girls, Rose; but she drove all seriousness out of me. I could have kissed her ruddy lips to close them, and put a stop to her merciless merriment. I have since visited the wood alone, but one cannot be sentimental alone—at least I cannot. The river runs through rich meadows, on which the sleek cattle browse in philosophic calmness: it forms an endless source of amusement. I have sat for hours in the boat gently dropping down the stream, lulled by the soft ripple, and yielding myself to dreamy listlessness. The broad leaves of the water-lily that float upon the stream supporting the delicate-shaped yellow flower, and the rich colours of the luxuriant loosestrife and other wild flowers, whose names I know not, together with the windings of the river, and its undulating meadows on one side, and many-tinted wood on the other, make up a picture of which I cannot tire.