“What are we to do? How very awkward!” exclaimed Mary. “Let us keep together, Anna: stay in the room when Mr. B—— comes.”
“Certainly, unless there should be company in the back drawing-room. Happily, we shall both draw; so it will not signify so much if papa should be out when Mr. D—— comes.”
It happened, as usual, that Anna forgot her promise. The clock struck eleven, and Mr. B—— made his appearance when Mary was alone. She was afraid of him at first sight, for he was so stiffened, so be-collared and be-curled, as to be unlike any body she had ever seen. She thought it would be foolish to ring for her sister, though she had now little hope of seeing her in the course of the lesson. She therefore explained that her father had been obliged to go out early, and volunteered all the necessary information about her musical studies thus far. She did not play her best, when called upon, and was, at first, deterred by her master’s pompous manner, from asking many things which she wished to know. By degrees, however, her habitual interest in her music overcame her uncomfortable feelings, and she played her part of a duet with so much spirit, that Mr. B——’s formality gradually gave way, and he began to speak less like an oracle, and to tap his snuffbox less incessantly. When the lesson was about half over, Mary heard a rapping at the door, and the admittance of company into the back drawing-room. She supposed that Anna had received them; and when Mr. B—— had made his three bows in acknowledgment of her single curtsey, she ran up stairs for her gloves, that she might join her sister and their guests. To her surprise, she found Anna sitting at the foot of the bed, with a book in her hand.
“Why, Anna, don’t you know there is somebody in the drawing-room?”
“Yes, I am going directly,” said Anna, rising, and showing that her gown was unfastened; “I am only going to change my gown, and I will come directly.”
Mary rang for Susan, and entreating her sister to follow with all speed, ran down to apologize to Mr. and Mrs. Nicholson for her father’s absence and her own delay. They staid long, but Anna came not; and the arrival of the drawing-master sent them away without having seen her. When again hunted up, she was found preparing her drawing-board, which ought to have been ready before.
“This will never do,” thought Mary: “I must ask papa not to go out again at this time of day.”
Anna woke up at the sight of her master’s beautiful portfolio, and appeared to have enjoyed her lesson so much, that Mary had not the heart to reproach her for her desertion in the morning. She forgot it herself when the carriage came to the door, and their father stepped in after them to take them to the Abbey.
There they remained for hours. They wandered silently through the intricacies of the side chapels, and retired from the crowd of visitors into the solemn stillness of Henry the Seventh’s chapel. There was no motion but the waving of the ancient banners of the knights; no sound but the softest melody of the organ; no sunshine but the one gleam which fell athwart the deep arch from the high windows. The partial gloom, the grandeur, the silence, thrilled the very souls of the strangers, and hushed their voices. After they had gone the round of the edifice, and spent a long hour in the Poets’ Corner, they, with one consent, returned to the chapel, that they might bear away with them the impression they most wished to preserve.
“Where next, my dears?” said Mr. Byerley, as they emerged into the warm sunshine.