And Winifred, feeling that she had taken the first plunge into independence and “a career,” bade her new friend good-bye for the present, with many times repeated expressions of gratitude.
Chapter Seven.
At White Turrets.
A clear, mild, late-autumn morning in the country—clear, though the sunshine, what there is of it, is thin and pallid; mild, yet with a certain slow chill in the air which is not inspiriting; over and through and behind all, the indescribable autumn feeling, the subdued consciousness of warmth and brightness passed, as distinct as is age from youth, from the equally indescribable hopefulness of even the least genial spring-time.
Yet there is no need to remind any one of the charm of such a day at such a season. Perhaps there is none, amidst the many fascinations of our ever-the-same yet ever-varying journey through space, more powerful, more irresistible, than the fascination of the fall of the year. As a rule, it is the young who love autumn best: they can afford to enjoy its subdued vitality as a contrast to their own overflowing life. The old, or the growing old, on the contrary, forget sometimes their own failing powers in the delightful exhilaration of reviving nature around them, in the songs of the birds and the blossoming of the buds, in the new life which, to many, one would hope, tells of deeper truths than lie on the surface.
A girl was standing by a window—an open window, so mild was the morning—overlooking a gravelled terrace walk. She was fairly tall, brown haired, and gentle eyed. Not as lovely as her sister Celia; scarcely, perhaps, as handsome, strictly speaking, as Winifred, the eldest of the three, yet with an undeniable charm of her own—a very gracious presence. For this was Louise, the second of the Maryon daughters.
And all about her seemed harmonious. The simple yet stately room, with the ancient white wainscoting, so rare in an English country-house, the perfect, though old-fashioned, appointments of the breakfast-table behind her: above all, perhaps, the scene from the window—the broad terrace, with the miniature ramparts, and the stiff, quaint, flower-beds beneath; and the park beyond, fading into dark masses of trees in the distance.
But Louise Maryon was not looking out; her eyes were fixed on a letter in her hand. And as the door opened quietly she looked up with eagerness.