“Just wait, papa,” answered Olivia, with one of her encouraging smiles.
“I knew how it would be. Wait until some of those big boxes are unpacked that you swore so about.”
When the boxes were unpacked, they were found to contain the old fashioned brass andirons and fenders that had shone upon the cheerful hearths at Isleham for many years. Olivia in a trice, had the grates out and managed to have a wood fire sparkling where once they were. Then she produced a great porcelain lamp they had brought from France with them, and some tall silver candlesticks and candelabra, which vastly improved the mantels, and she re-arranged the tasteless furniture and bric-à-brac with such skill that she cheated herself as well as others into believing them pretty.
It was rather an effort to Pembroke, his first visit. He would not take Miles with him lest he should seem to fear to go alone. It was now five years past. Naturally they had met often, but in some way, this meeting impressed him differently. He had at last waked up to the fact that he could not forget Olivia Berkeley. It angered him against himself—and so it was in rather an unamiable mood that he left the House early, and took his way through a drizzling rain to the Berkeleys’. When he rung the bell, Petrarch’s familiar black face greeted him.
“Hi, howdy, Marse French. It do my heart good ter see you. Ole Marse, I spec he everlastin’ cuss when he fin’ out you been here an’ he ain’t home. Miss Livy, she in de settin’ room.”
“And how are you all getting on here?” asked Pembroke, as Petrarch officiously helped him off with his great-coat.
“Tollerbul, tollerbul, sir. Old marse, he mighty orkard sometimes. He swar an’ takes de Lord’s name in vain, spite o’ de commandment ‘Doan never you swar at all.’ I try ter make him behave hisse’f ter de policemens an’ sech, but he quile all de time he gwine long de street.”
He ushered Pembroke through the drawing-room, into a little room beyond. On a sofa drawn up to the wood fire, sat Olivia, making a pretty home-like picture, in the half light, contrasted with the dreary drawing-room beyond, and the dismal drizzle outside.
They had not met for nearly two years. The session of Congress had lasted almost through the year, and when he had been in the county last, Olivia was away in the mountains. He noticed instantly that she was very, very pretty, but her beauty had taken a graver and more womanly cast. Oh, the elaborate ease, to cover the overpowering awkwardness of those former tête-à-tête meetings! Pembroke felt this acutely when he first saw her—but it vanished strangely at the moment that Olivia held out her little hand and spoke to him. Her voice, her manner, were pleasantly natural. It carried him back to the old days when he was gradually slipping into love with her. How grateful and soothing had been her native charm as an escape from Madame Koller’s exaggerated heroics!
“Papa will be sorry to miss you,” she said pointing him to the easiest chair, and putting her feet comfortably on a footstool.