The Princess was now sitting on the arm of Elinor’s chair, looking down into her face, in a motherly, or elder sisterly, sort of way.
“Well, you would know all about the king if I told you. He died only the other day, so you will soon guess him. C’était un vaurien, un imbécile. My father not only loved this–”
She stopped, abruptly, leaning forward with 194one hand upon the table. “Mais, Mon Dieu! there is my portrait! My old miniature of twenty years ago! How came it there?” And she pointed to the opposite chair.
“We found it hanging there when we came, and have never disturbed it.”
“You found it hanging there, on the back of that chair?”
“Yes.”
“My own chair–where I used to sit! So, then, I was always before him!”
Elinor nodded. In the eyes of the Princess came fresh tears. She undertook to say more, but failed; and getting up, she walked around the table and dropped into Pats’s chair, gurgling something in French about the petit père. Then she broke down completely, buried her face in her hands, and made no effort to control her grief.
When she recovered composure, her self-reproaches were bitter for allowing so many years to go by without a visit to this devoted parent. Smiling as she dried her eyes,–the eyes with the drooping corners, old friends to Elinor,–she said: “You, also, had me for a guest all this time.”
“No, for a hostess. It is your house.”