“Trust me, my dear, for doing what is best,” said her ladyship.
There was a great bouquet of flowers on the table, which was littered with presents from the bridegroom elect, and family friends; but Maude did not seem to heed them, only the flowers, which she picked up, and as Lady Barmouth smiled and shook her head at her husband, Maude went and sat down by the open window, to begin picking the petals to pieces and shower them down. Some fell fluttering out into the area; some littered her dress and the carpet; and some were wafted by the wind to a distance; but Maude’s mind seemed far away, and her little white fingers performed their task of destroying her present, as her head sank down lower and lower, bowed down by its weight of care.
It was autumn, and the shades of evening were falling, and so were Maude’s spirits; hence a tear fell from time to time upon the flowers, to lie amidst the petals like a dew-drop; but they fell faster as her ladyship uttered an impatient cry, for just then the black-bearded Italian stopped beneath the window, swung round his organ, and began to grind out dolefully the Miserere once more and its following melody from Trovatore, the whole performance sounding so depressing in her nervous state that the poor girl’s first inclination was to bury her face in her hands, and sob as if her heart would break. She set her teeth though firmly, glanced back in the room, and then, smiling down at the handsome simple face beneath her, she threw a sixpence which the man caught in his soft hat.
“Grazie, signora,” said the Italian, smiling and showing his white teeth.
“Maude, how can you be so foolish?” cried her ladyship. “You have encouraged those men about till it’s quite dreadful: we never have any peace.”
“Poor fellows!” said Maude, “they seem very glad of a few pence, and they are far away from home.”
“Yes,” said her ladyship, “where they ought to be sent back.”
“I remember once,” said Lord Barmouth, “in the old days when they used to have moving figures dancing in front of their organs, one of Lady Betty Lorimer’s daughters actually got—he, he, he! carrying on a clandestine correspondence with one of those handsome vagabonds.”
Maude looked at her father in a startled way.
“Barmouth, be silent,” cried her ladyship, as the butler entered the room with a fresh present upon a tray. “Robbins,” she said, “go downstairs and tell that man that he will be given into custody if he does not go away directly. Tell him some one is ill,”—for just then a fresh strain was ground out in a most doleful fashion, and Maude began softly humming the air to herself as she gazed down, still in the man’s handsome face.