6th.--These last few fine days have afforded the pretext for complying with Adeline's wish, and here we are, once more, at Belport, she wonderfully improved. Still better, still better! for how long? Rose has resumed her wild gaiety of spirits, and says she will sing a Te Deum for having left the dreary old château and its ghosts behind us.
A bed has been placed on the first-floor for Adeline, in the back drawing-room. This is better; for she can now reach the front drawing-room, where we sit, without being exposed to the cold air of the staircase. And should she be confined to her room at the last, as may be expected, it will be more convenient for the servants; and indeed in all respects.
7th.--Madame de Nino called today, bringing two of the elder girls. Adeline asked them innumerable questions about the school, and seemed really awakened to interest. Many other friends have also called; compared with the gloomy solitude of the château, each day since our arrival has been like a levee. The doctors apparently see no impropriety in this, for they don't forbid it. I think Adeline is better for it: she has not the leisure to brood so entirely over the past. She is still silent on the subject of her misery, never hinting at it. Mr. St. John's name is not mentioned by any one, and the scenes and events of the last six months might be a dream, for all the allusion ever made to them. Never was she so beautiful as she is now; delicate and fragile of course, but that is a great charm in woman's loveliness. Her features are more than ever conspicuous for their exquisite contour, her soft brown eyes are of a sweeter sadness, her cheeks glow with a transparent rose colour. Visitors look at her with astonishment, almost question the fact of her late dangerous illness, and say she is getting well. But there is no exertion: listless and inanimate she sits, or lies, her trembling, fevered hands holding one or other of the English journals--looking in them for a name that she never finds.
Yesterday Rose was reading to her in a volume of Shelley, when a letter from England was brought in, its superscription in the handwriting of Mrs. Darling. Adeline looked up, eager and flushed, signing to Rose to open it. Madame de Castella has stared in her ladylike way at this betrayed emotion whenever letters come for Rose. We understand it: and Rose always reads them to her. The Darlings are in London, know people that Mr. St. John knows, and Adeline thinks there may be a chance that his name will be mentioned in these letters. "The letter will keep," said Rose, glancing cursorily into it; and she laid it down and resumed her book.
"I love, but I believe in love no more,
I feel desire, but hope not. Oh, from Sleep
Most vainly must my weary brain implore
Its long-lost flattery now: I wake to weep,
And sit, the long day, gnawing through the core
Of my bitter heart----"
I looked up at her, involuntarily, it was so applicable; Rose also made a momentary stop, and her glance wandered in the same direction. Adeline's eyes met ours. It was one of those awkward moments that will happen to all; and the flush on Adeline's cheek deepened to crimson. It was very applicable:
"I wake to weep,
And sit, the long day, gnawing through the core
Of my bitter heart."
Alas! alas!
Rose's letter contained ill news of the Darling family. Her quick sight saw what it was, and she hastened to put the letter up, not caring to speak of it at once to Adeline. Really she is growing more cautious than she used to be! That poor little child, the heir, in whose life was bound up so much of worldly prosperity, is dead: he died more than a week ago. Rose is in a state of what she is pleased to call "dumps." Firstly, for the child's own sake: she never saw him but once, this summer at Belport, but took a real liking for the little fellow; secondly, because Rose has orders to put herself into mourning. If Rose hates one thing in this world more than another, it is a black bonnet.
Adeline was standing by the fire today when the English physician came in. He was struck with the improvement in her looks. "You are cheating us all," he said. "We shall have a wedding yet."