The Heart of Penelope

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

'Isn't everything—of that sort—a little awkward, sometimes, for all of us?' she asked.

'Yes,' he said; 'there must be times when guardian angels must feel inclined to edge off somewhat, eh? or do you think they fly off for rest and change when their charges annoy them by being contrary?'

Cecily looked at him doubtfully. He spoke quite seriously, but she thought it just possible that he was laughing at her. 'I suppose that they do not remain long with very wicked people,' she said at last, and he saw a frown of perplexity pucker her white forehead. 'But I'm sure they do all they can to keep us good.'

'I wonder,' he said reflectively, 'what limitation you would put to their power? To give you an instance; you admit that had your aunt been at church to-day you could not have taken charge of that poor baby, or afterwards helped, as you most certainly did help, its tired mother. Now, do you suppose that this baby's guardian angel provoked, by some way best known to itself, your excellent aunt's headache?'

'Laugh at me,' she said, smiling a little vexedly, 'but not at our own or at other people's guardian angels; for I suppose even you would admit that if they are with us they have feelings which may be hurt?'

As he held the wicket-gate open for her to pass through from the cliff path into the pine-wood boundary of Monk's Eype, Wantley said suddenly: 'I wonder if you have ever read a story called "In the Wrong Paradise"?' and as Cecily shook her head he added: 'Then never do so! I am sure your guardian angel would not at all approve of the moral it sets out to convey.' And then, just as she was going up from the flagged terrace into the central hall of the villa, he said, the laughter dying wholly out of his voice: 'And if I may do so, let me tell you that I hope, with all my heart, that I may ultimately be found worthy to enter whichever may happen to be your Paradise.'

A look of great kindness, of understanding more than he had perhaps meant to convey, came over Cecily's candid eyes. She made no answer, but as she ran upstairs to her aunt's room she said to herself: 'Poor fellow! Of course he means the Church. Oh, I must pray hard that he may some day find his way to his father's Paradise and mine!'

She found her aunt lying down, and apparently asleep, on the broad comfortable old sofa which was placed across the bottom of the bed, opposite the window. The pretty room, hung with blue Irish linen forming an admirable background to Mrs. Robinson's fine water-colours, looked delightfully cool to the girl's tired eyes; the blinds had been pulled down, and Cecily, walking on tiptoe past her aunt, sat down in a low easy-chair, content to wait quietly till Miss Wake should open her eyes. But the long walk, the sea-air, had made the watcher drowsy, and soon Cecily also was asleep.

Then, within the next few moments, a strange thing happened to Cecily Wake.

After what seemed a long time, she apparently awoke to a sight which struck her as odd rather than unexpected.