BY THE OLD WATER-MILL.
“Never any more
While I live,
Need I hope to see his face
As before.”
R. Browning
THERE were letters from Hivèritz the next morning, one for Geneviève and one for Mrs. Methvyn. Both had been looked for with some anxiety, and their contents were fortunately in both instances satisfactory.
“It is all right about my letter to your mother, Geneviève,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “She got it quite safely, and thought I should be satisfied with hearing from you that it had reached her, till she had time to write. She seems to have been so busy. I am so glad we did not write again to tease her.”
“Poor mamma!” said Geneviève softly.
She was feeling very anxious to read her own letter, but judged it safer to defer doing so till she should be alone. The first two hours after breakfast were generally Geneviève’s own to employ as she chose, for Cicely always spent them in writing to her father’s dictation in his own room. So Geneviève hastened upstairs and eagerly opened her letter. It was a very kind one, and, as before, the girl’s heart smote her more than once as she read. There was no reproach for Geneviève’s strange behaviour in not delivering the letter entrusted to her care for Mrs. Methvyn. Madame Casalis seemed in a sense touched by her daughter’s trust in her leniency.
“I have written to Mrs. Methvyn again,” she wrote, “and I have avoided the allusion you objected to. I do not of course understand your reason for fearing it, but I doubt not that when we meet again you will explain it. Only, my Geneviève, I would beg you to avoid even the slightest occasion for not acting with perfect frankness. You are so young and far from me, and in England the customs, I believe, are somewhat different. Confide then, my child, as in a mother, in thy good and amiable aunt.”
A slightly disturbed expression came over Geneviève’s face as she read these last words.
“My mother understands not,” she said to herself. “It would be impossible that she could understand. Mais enfin—”