My little heroine—the bonnie, winsome, lovesome Meta—had seen many changes even in her short lifetime. And now she is home for a time at her father’s house. Though a very beautiful and tastefully furnished mansion, Captain Jahnsen’s home was by no means a palace, but compared to Meta’s cottage in Iceland, surrounded by wild, bleak, and rugged scenery—scenery nearly as silent as the grave or Greenland—her father’s domains were almost a paradise.
But Meta was one of those girls that, however humble their early surroundings, if transplanted to a higher sphere, grace it Meta, in her Norland home, dressed in hodden grey or simple wincey, was a lady. Meta, arrayed in the costliest and neatest garments a fashionable costumier could devise, and, through her father’s fondness, “bedecked in jewels rare,” was nothing more. She was artless, straightforward, innocent, and candid. What else can you wish for in a lady, young or old?
And by-and-by Meta would be the lady of Dunallan Towers, and Claude’s mother the dowager; and none to see her now could doubt she would fit and fill the proud position gracefully and well.
After a few weeks at home, during which, however, he had made many a little run to Captain Jahnsen’s house, going with all a lover’s joyful ardour, returning with all a lover’s sad, sweet reluctance, our hero ran his vessel down the Clyde.
It mattered but very little to Claude where the beautiful yacht Alba lay while being altered and refitted, so she was moored not far from Captain Jahnsen’s house. Refitted? Yes, because there were tons of iron and wood to come off her bows, and changes were to be made in her saloon and interior generally. She would sail no longer to the icy regions of the far north, but by way of change—and such a change!—to sunny lands beyond the torrid zone.
There was a deal to be done to the interior of the Alba. Fewer hands would be needed now, and therefore a new saloon for the officers, with cabins off it, was built in the fore-part of the ship. It was by no means capacious, this room, but Claude spared no expense in making it both elegant and comfortable.
The after-part of the ship was to contain Claude’s private apartments, and here taste vied with elegance to make a suite of ship-rooms that nothing that is beautiful on board the finest liner could surpass.
What a pleasure it was to Claude, this refitting of what for many months was to be the ocean home of his bonnie bride!
When the last clang of hammer was hushed on board, when every artisan had left the ship, then, and not till then, did Claude invite Captain Jahnsen and his daughter to inspect the Alba.
Is it necessary to say that Meta wondered at and admired everything; asked a great many questions, and felt somewhat like a maiden under the spell of an enchanter?