The dinner was a long one, served with all the tedious formalities which the fierce butler chose to inflict. It was not until the servants had withdrawn that the host and hostess, who stood in mortal dread of their chief functionary, their oracle on all matters of etiquette, seemed to feel themselves at home at their own table. The removal of this restraint, and the excellent wine, served to make the last quarter of an hour spent over the dessert the pleasantest part of the repast. Millicent, sitting at the right hand of her host, at last succeeded in making him tell some anecdotes of his early Californian experiences, to which she listened with breathless interest. Her feelings were undergoing a radical change; and if the country which she at first detested had not yet become dear to her, she certainly felt the greatest interest and curiosity to learn more of it. In the old dreamy life of Venice, her days had been spent in golden visions of a vanished grandeur. She was now awaking to the stirring reality of the present, and felt dimly that to be an heir to the glories of the past was but a part of living,--an inheritance which affects us less than the actual doing and striving of our own times.
The party sat together in the library, with its comfortable chairs and rows of undisturbed books sleeping between their gilded covers, until late in the evening. The conversation was general, and the quick mind of the stranger guest learned from it much that roused her attention. "If I only had four ears instead of two!" she cried at last, after a vain endeavor to follow at the same time a discussion between Ferrara and Mr. Shallop on the best method of vine culture, and a conversation between Graham and Mrs. Shallop on the subject of the public schools. Soon after this, the ladies left the room; and Millicent, her pulses all a-tremble with the various new experiences of the day, was slow in falling asleep. That night her lips forgot to give their wonted homesick sigh for Italy, for Venice.
CHAPTER VI.
"Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May?
When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow do you say?"
The week's visit at the Shallops' slipped quickly away, each pleasant day passing too hastily into to-morrow, Millicent thought. The ordering of each day had something of a routine, beginning invariably with a gallop on horseback. The way sometimes led across wet, hard beaches where the horses' hoofs crushed, with a crisp sound, the tiny sea-shells left by the receding waves. The tall roan which Millicent rode was a young thoroughbred, with slender legs, a proud, arching neck, and unclipped mane and tail. Mrs. Shallop had given the fine animal to her guest; and Millicent, who had a magnetic influence over all animals, easily controlled the horse by word or touch. The young people usually paired off; Millicent riding beside Graham, Barbara and Ferrara following, while Mr. Shallop brought up the rear on a sturdy cob whose character and strength were well calculated to bear up the portly magnate. Sometimes they rode through the odorous woods, where the air was heavy with spices, and melodious with sweet bird-notes foreign to Millicent's ears. The tall and stately redwoods standing straight and unbending in their close serried ranks, seemed to her a noble symbol of the life of an upright man, who looks fearlessly into the wide heavens, raised far above the briers which grow about his lesser brethren.
On their return from their ride, glowing with the splendid exercise, breakfast was served; sometimes in the pretty morning room, oftener in a sheltered part of the wide veranda, from whence they might look out upon the shadowy woods stretching behind the house. After this meal, Mr. Shallop and Ferrara took the train for San Francisco; and the hostess and Graham disappeared into the temporary studio which had been arranged for the artist. The two girls were left to amuse themselves. Millicent, who had brought her usual store of books, did not open one of them, but moused about in the library, finding many works quite new to her and full of interest. If her knowledge of Italian and French literature was remarkable, her ignorance of the English classics was stupendous. Shakspeare alone was familiar to her among the great ones. The long rows of finely bound books were mostly uncut and showed little evidence of having been read, a copy of a lady's fashion book, and a volume treating of the manners of polite society, forming notable exceptions to this rule. At mid-day a beach-wagon conveyed the young girls to the shining sea-sands, and they indulged in the luxury of a bath. In the afternoon they took long drives, or played lawn tennis with friends from the hotel in the town. The evenings were sometimes spent on the long, cool veranda, oftener on Mr. Shallop's stanch yacht, the "Golden Hind." She was a fine vessel several tons heavier than her illustrious namesake, in which Sir Francis Drake sailed along the coast of California more than three centuries ago, and took possession of the land as "New Albion," in the name of good Queen Bess.
Pleasant days, full of incident and enjoyment, filled with new impressions to Millicent, and freighted with sunlight and merriment to all the party. No thought of the weather lent the anxious uncertainty to plans which so often to us in the East takes half the enjoyment from anticipation. From May to November in this favored land the blue of the sky is unclouded, save by gossamer white drifts of vapor, massed into soft shapes and mystic outlines. The sky smiles from spring to laughing summer, and the land lies steeped in sunshine through the late autumn.
The wide white beach, with its row of bathing-houses and little tents, was very attractive to Millicent. She sometimes sat in the warm sand for hours, chatting with Barbara or making friends with the bare-legged children, the tireless architects in sand. Finally, donning their bathing-suits, they ran, hand in hand, over the dry sands, across the wet space which the last wave had darkened, through the white fringe of the sea, into the cool green billows.
The last day of their visit had come, and the morrow would see them on their way back to San Rosario. Millicent and Barbara had prolonged their sea dip beyond their usual wont. Never before had the water seemed so bracing and delicious. As there were twenty or thirty bathers to keep her company, Millicent lingered among the breakers, while Barbara regained the shore. She swam leisurely about, displacing the clear water with her white arms and pretty, small feet. She suddenly became aware that a swimmer was gaining on her from behind, and her stroke instinctively quickened. Millicent swam as only the women of Venice can swim; and the race between her and her unseen pursuer bade fair to be hotly contested. With head high lifted from the waves which circled caressingly about the smooth round throat, knotting the tendril curls at the nape of the neck, the girl kept steadily on her course without turning her head to see who might be so audacious as to follow her. Strong as were her strokes, she slowly lost ground; and finally the water about her rippled with the strokes of the man who was gaining. Soon he had caught up with her, and side by side they swam for a space. Then the victor spoke in a voice well known to her, and the girl answered him with a laugh which rang out fresh and crisp as the sound of the wavelets. Then she turned her head and looked full at him as he moved by her side, strong and graceful as a young merman.
"So, my nymph, you are at home in Father Neptune's arms as well as in the embrace of the great tree. Which is your native element, earth, air, or water?"