The chief solace of the two ladies was to read French novels and English weekly newspapers. When the "Queen" published, among "Americans in London," a picture of the beautiful Miss Winstanley in her presentation gown, describing the glories of its "white and silver, with lilies-of-the-valley bunched around the train," together with details of the young lady's success in the fashionable world under the sponsorship of Lady Campstown, Miss Bleecker may have been said to have received her punishment for many follies in the past.
A perfect day of early July saw the visit of Miss Winstanley and her father to Beaumanoir, so long projected and so rudely interrupted, at last an accomplished fact. Lady Campstown, who had taken up her residence with her nephew under the supposition that he still needed her care, sat outside, after luncheon, with Mr. Winstanley, between whom and herself an excellent comradeship had sprung up. She saw nothing odd in the old fellow's quaint manners, his homely exterior, his shyness and reverence toward women. She had always liked his having come out of the Southern rather than the Northern portion of the States, feeling, somehow, more in touch with people from below the fabled line of Mason and Dixon than with their aggressively prosperous neighbors. She liked his showing nothing of his wealth and potentiality, and enjoyed his shrewd talk. Above all, it must be said she liked him for being the progenitor of Posey, who had finally wound herself and tangled herself in the dowager's heart-strings, not to be dislodged.
They had been talking of the girl, and the fact that despite her brilliant little sortie into London society, she did not look quite happy—quite herself.
"It will be as well for her when it is all over," said Lady Campstown, plying her knitting-pins. "But I don't think it's done her real harm to have seen things the way we do them. And another year, perhaps—who knows? There are always changes." She ended with a sigh.
"If you are alluding to my daughter's marriage, ma'am," said Herbert Winstanley, speaking with authority and swallowing a lump of final disappointment, "I was wanting a chance to tell you that she's about concluded that John Glynn and she will be better friends than lovers. I had been suspecting something of the kind when she told me—on the Fourth it was, and I had to laugh when she said she chose that day on account of George Washington and the cherry tree, because she couldn't tell a lie. That's Posey, Lady Campstown. Always a laugh on her lip when a tear is in her eye. I saw how hard it went with her to have to rob me of a dear hope. But I reckoned if her mother'd been living it'd not have been let go so far. It's a hard thing for a man of my age to play on a little delicate musical instrument like a girl's heart. It's over, anyhow, and she's written giving Glynn his freedom. I think Posey would like you to know these circumstances, ma'am, seeing you're the best substitute for a mother the little girl has had. She doesn't want you to think her light or triflin' in such things; she tried hard to be loyal to him and me.... But even if she'd loved John well enough to be his wife, there was an obstacle. He had kept company with another young lady first, and they'd been separated by his being poor.... I presume you'll agree that a young fellow who'd once been in love with Miss Helen Carstairs couldn't find giving her up as easy as it seemed."
"So that's the meaning of it all?" cried her ladyship, dropping her knitting, which the Schipperke proceeded to guard as if it were a Dutch baby asleep in a canal-boat. "I often wondered, but could not be sure. I almost thought it was M. de Mariol."
"Well, I shouldn't think that would suit, exactly," said the old man, cautiously nodding his Anglo-Saxon head. "Not but what he's a nice man, the Monseer. But, as things look now, my boy is a better match for Mr. Carstairs' daughter, and John'll feel more sure of himself to ask her again. She's had a hard time, that sweet lady, and I wish her many years of happiness to forget it in. You see, ma'am, my Posey thinks John will ask her again."
Lady Campstown, who had long since resigned herself to see the vision of Helen at Beaumanoir fade from her imagination, here felt a great new jet of hope spring up in her heart and water everything around it. Her withered cheek glowed rosy red, her eyes had a girlish lustre. She hardly presumed to put her thoughts into words, and yet the mild blue orbs of old Mr. Winstanley had fixed themselves upon hers with a singular significance.
"Mr. Winstanley! You have another idea?" she exclaimed, nervously trembling.
"Several, ma'am," said Herbert Winstanley. "You know by this time, I reckon, that your nephew got that bad hurt on the cheek and just missed losing his eyesight, to save Posey from a mad woman. Girls set store by such experiences, I suppose. But long ago, on the steamer, I saw she fancied him mightily.... I won't conceal from you, ma 'am, it isn't what I'd have picked out for Posey. Doesn't seem suitable for such a Hail Columbia sort of girl, now, does it? But Clandonald's a white man, I'll say that for him.... And m' wife set a great store by English people and their homes.... They're staying away a good long time, those young folks.... The doctors threaten I'll have to spend my winters in Cannes, the years that are left to me, but I reckon Villa Rain des Fays is big enough for us all."