Beyond the last of these, in a little wooded creek, and on the summit of a green bank overlooking the river, stood the charming little villa occupied temporarily by Mrs. Deroubigne, from the windows of which the great panorama of the Hansetown was visible, with the lofty red-brick tower of St. Michael's Kirk (a hundred feet higher than the dome of St. Paul's at London), bathed in ruddy gold, and casting its mighty shadow half-way to Altona; and, as the evening sky grew redder, the spires of St. Katharine and St. Nicholai grew redder too; and now, impressed by the beauty of the evening and of the scene, the influence of the season and the soft purity of the ambient air, the two girls, in the new happiness of their hearts, sang together a duet from 'Il Flauto Magico,' of Mozart, all unaware that a young Prussian officer—a smart uhlan, in bright green uniform—was lingering admiringly near them.
We need scarcely mention, though Hamburg is famous for the beauty of its women, the officers of the garrison, the uhlans, and the Hanoverian infantry in the Dammthor Barracks always welcomed the appearance of the two 'charming English meeses' and their handsome chaperone at the consul's balls, the opera, the fêtes in the Botanischer Garten, or when the bands played in the fashionable Jungfernstieg (or Maiden's Walk), the beautiful tree-shaded promenade by the side of the Alster, which is always covered with gaily-painted pleasure-boats.
These amusements, with fancy work, music, and novels—Tauchnitz editions, of course—made the sweet spring days pass quickly with Mary and Ellinor in that gay city, where, it is said, that in summer the inhabitants appear to work all day and amuse themselves all night.
Before their departure to the Continent, great had been the astonishment of Lady Dunkeld and the fair Blanche Galloway when they heard of the near relationship of Colville to the sisters, of his engagement to Mary, and that they were to be chaperoned by Mrs. Deroubigne till the marriage came to pass.
'The marriage!' How Blanche elevated her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders. It was bitter to lose thus the future Lord Colville of Ochiltree.
Both those aristocratic ladies would fain have extended their patronage and countenance to the sisters now; but, aware of their past malevolence, Mary and Ellinor, though far from revengeful, steadily declined all intercourse with them. Nor did Mrs. Deroubigne attempt to control their actions or wishes in the matter. Thus a coldness amounting almost to a 'cut' ensued between her and the Dunkeld family.
Leslie Colville's last letter to Mary from Jellalabad had narrated the episode of his meeting with Robert Wodrow, and the mutual good services they had done each other; and Mary, who had read of the personal conflict in the war correspondent's news, felt her heart sink within her at the contemplation of the many and incessant perils her lover—her affianced husband—had to encounter.
And how often did Mary recall their parting, when he had held her face tenderly and caressingly between his hands while he gazed down into her tear-blinded eyes, so sweetly and so passionately, posed as they both were like the pair in 'the Huguenot' of Millais's picture; while she looked up to him as sweetly and as passionately too.
His departure had seemed to Mary but the beginning of the end. Yet who could foresee amid the terrible contingencies of war and climate what that end might be?
Thankful she felt as each day passed, and with it a portion of the time of separation; but who might know what that day had seen or brought forth far, far away among the wild mountains of Afghanistan? And so, with curious and persistent ingenuity, thoughtful and anxious fancy often tormented her.