I had crossed in the bright October sunshine from Calais to Dover without once taking refuge in the close, pent-up saloon, which is like a little purgatory when the waters of the Channel are stirred to their depths, and the boat is tossed like a feather from one angry wave to another. It was very quiet that day, and the sea was literally like glass, with the sunshine falling so softly upon it. Nobody had been sick except a fair young girl, with bride unmistakably stamped upon her, from her dainty traveling-dress to the trustful glance of the blue eyes lifted so often and lovingly to the face of the young man beside her. Once, when the boat rocked more than usual, she had turned white to her lips, and, dropping her golden head upon the shoulder of her husband, had kept it there in a weary, languid kind of way, while I speculated about her, wondering who she was, and where she was going, and hoping that the party of American girls, who seemed to monopolize and fill the entire deck, would take note of her, and see that at least one of my countrywomen had taste, and style and beauty combined.
“Such frights as the English women are, with their horrid shoes, their dresses made before the flood, and that everlasting white thing tied high about their throats,” I had heard one of them say and, while flushing with indignation, had felt, to a certain degree, that their criticism was just, and that, taken as a whole, the English ladies did not compare favorably with their American sisters, so far as grace and style were concerned.
But this little bride, with the blue eyes and golden hair, might have come from the show-rooms of the most fashionable modiste on Broadway, and not have shamed her mantua-maker. She had evidently been gotten up in Paris, and I watched her with a good deal of interest until the cliffs of Dover were in sight, and we were nearing the shores of England and home. Then, in seeing to my boxes, which were the very last to be brought from the boat, I forgot everything, and came near being left by the train waiting to take us to London.
“Hurry up, miss, you’ve only quarter of a second,” a porter cried, as, in my bewilderment, I was looking for a carriage. “Here, here! this way! Second class?” he screamed again, interrogatively, and seizing the door of a second-class carriage, he held it open for me, guessing, by what intuition I know not, that I must necessarily be a second-class passenger.
For once, he was mistaken; for, thanks to the kindness of dear Kitty Bute, with whom my vacation had been passed, I was first-class all the way from Paris to London, and, rejecting contemptuously the porter’s offer of assistance, I sprang into the nearest first-class compartment, just as the train began to move, and found myself alone with the little bride and groom. There was a look of annoyance in the eyes of the bride, while the young man gave a significant pull to his brown mustache, and I knew I was not wanted. But I had a right as valid as their own, and taking my seat on the opposite side, near the open window, I pretended to be occupied with the country through which we were passing so swiftly, while my thoughts went back to the past, gathering up the broken threads of my life, and dwelling upon what I had been once and what I was now.
And this is the picture I saw far back through a vista of twelve long, weary years. A pleasant old house in Middlesex—an English house, of stone, with ivy creeping over it even to the chimney-tops, and the boxes of flowers in the windows, the tall trees in front, the patches of geraniums and petunias in the grass, the honeysuckle over the door of the wide, old-fashioned hall, through which the summer air blew softly, laden with the perfume of roses, and the sweet-scented mignonette. And I was standing in the door, with a half-opened rose in my hair, and the tall, angular boy who had placed it there was looking down upon me with great tears swimming in his eyes, as he said:
“Keep the rose, Norah, till I come back, and I shall know you have not forgotten me, even if you are Mrs. Archibald Browning.”
There was an emphasis on the last name, and a tone in his voice as he spoke it, which did not please me, and I said:
“Oh, Tom, why can’t you like Archie better, and he so noble and good, and so kind to get you that position with his uncle in India?”
“Yes, I know; Archie is lovely, and I am a brute because I don’t feel like kissing his feet just because he interested himself to get me the place. But I hope you will be happy, and if those two lubbers of cousins happen to die, you will be my Lady Cleaver, and mistress of Briarton Lodge; but don’t forget old Tom, who by that time will be married to some black East Indian princess, and have a lot of little darkies running round. There, I must go now; it’s time. I say, Norah, come with me through the field to the highway. I want to keep hold of you to the very last, and Archie won’t care. I’m your brother, you know.”