“How cross Edmond is!” said Bessie, getting up from the piano pettishly. Suddenly a thought struck her. “Miss Methvyn,” she exclaimed abruptly, “your name isn’t ‘Cicely,’ is it?”
“Cicely did not immediately answer. “I never thought of it before,” Mrs. Crichton continued; “it just struck me all at once that I had heard Madame Casalis call you by some name like it, but she pronounced it funnily.”
“She very often calls me Cécile,” replied Miss Methvyn quietly. “But my name is Cicely.”
Bessie was silent. Then suddenly she turned to Cicely and laid both hands on her arm entreatingly. “Miss Methvyn,” she said, “Edmond is like a son to me. I could not bear him to be miserable. He is not a man to go through anything of that kind lightly. Forgive me for saying this.”
“There is nothing to forgive,” replied Cicely. “But I think you are mistaken. Mr. Guildford is not a boy, he is wiser than either you or I.”
Bessie hardly understood these rather enigmatical words, but she dared say no more. After that day, however, she could never find her brother’s favourite ballad again; it disappeared mysteriously.
And things went on as quietly as before. Mr. Guildford’s health seemed perfectly reestablished, and even his eyesight failed to trouble him. He gave himself a holiday for the remainder of his stay at Hivèritz, and the days passed only too pleasantly. There were all manner of simple festivities arranged to amuse their visitor, by the Casalis family in those days, and in these, Madame Gentille and her brother were invariably invited to join. There were gipsy parties to the woods, drives or rides to some of the queer picturesque out-of the-world villages, which few of the ordinary visitors to Hivèritz cared to explore; one delightful day spent up in the mountains at Monsieur Casalis’s little farm. And despite the sorrows, whose traces could never be effaced, Cicely found life a happy thing at these times and felt glad that youth had not yet deserted her. She spoke often of her mother to Mr. Guildford, and in so doing lost gradually the sense of loneliness which had so sadly preyed upon her. And she listened with all her old interest to his account of his own hopes and ambitions, of the studies and research in which he had been engaged. But whenever he was speaking of himself or his own work, a slight hesitation, a somewhat doubtful tone struck her which she could not explain. One day she learnt the reason of it.
They had gone for a long ramble in the woods—Cicely, Eudoxie, and two of the Casalis boys, and on their way through the town they fell in with Mrs. Crichton and her brother, who forthwith volunteered to accompany them. It was March by now, and quite as hot as was pleasant for walking.
“It is like English midsummer,” said Cicely, looking up half longingly into the depth of brilliant blue sky overhead, “only I don’t think the skies at home are ever quite so blue or the trees and grass quite so green. The most beautiful English summer day is like to-day with a veil over it. But I like home best.”
‘Oh! to be in England—’”