"Yes, Sir, exactly seven years."
"It seems a long time, does it not?" he added, addressing Mrs. Langton, as if to remind her that seven years had passed over her beauty.
"Very!" she replied, smelling her rose, and looking like one for whom time does not exist.
"I remember you quite well," Edward continued, addressing me, "a small fair child, with bright golden hair, which has now deepened into brown."
"Do you?" I replied, amused by this little bit of fiction, to which Mrs. Langton listened, smiling at the slight put on her glossy tresses, dark as the raven's wing.
"Oh! yes," he continued, "Bertha and I used to call you the little white rose. Your name is Rose, is it not?"
"No, my name is Daisy; that is to say, Margaret, but at home I am always called Daisy."
"The name of the sweetest wild flower," he replied, smiling; "there may be less beauty about it," he continued, "than about the rose, but then it has a grace and a freshness quite its own."
The Rose looked scornful. Not relishing being thus made the instrument of Mr. Edward Thornton's pique, I rose, and spite of his entreaties, left the arbour. Common politeness would not allow him to desert Mrs. Langton; how they got on together is more than I know. They were studiously polite at dinner.
When I went up to my room that same evening, I perceived that the little black trunk had arrived. I opened it eagerly, but searched in vain for a letter. A fact, however, struck me. It contained the portfolio of Italian drawings placed there by another hand than mine. I turned them over with a vague hope. I found nothing but a stray scrap of paper, which I took to the light. It was one of those rude and hasty sketches with which artists write down passing ideas: yet, imperfect as it was, I recognised at a glance the well I had so recently seen and visited. A female figure, in which I knew myself, sat by it with her hand shading her eyes, as if watching for something or some one; the disk of the sun, half sunk behind the far horizon and sending forth low spreading rays, indicated the close of day. Evidently Cornelius knew this place and wished me to meet him there at sunset. When? Most probably on the following day. My heart leaped with joy at the thought of seeing him so soon, and with trust and hope on perceiving how faithfully he kept his promise.