We have been fond of each other ever since that moment; we are so to-day.
"Come with me to the kitchen-garden now," he says, "and see my puppies." And he calls to the gardener and commits to his charge the pony, that, quite content with the success of his manœuvre, is quietly cropping the verbena-blossoms.
My tears are dried. I am crouching beside the kennel in the kitchen-garden, with four charming little puppies in my lap. There is a fragrance of cucumber-leaves, sorrel, and thyme all about. The bright sunshine gleams on the dusty glass of the hot-bed, on the pumpkins and cucumbers, on the water in the tub under the pump, beside which a weeping willow parades its proverbial melancholy. Harry's fair, fat tutor is walking past a trellis where the early peaches are hanging, smoking a long porcelain pipe. He pauses and pinches the fruit here and there, as if to discover when it will be ripe. I hold one after another of the silken, warm dog-babies to my cheek, and am happy, while Harry laughs good-humouredly at my enthusiasm and prevents the jealous mother of the puppies from snapping at me.
----"We have been fond of each other ever since." The major smiles contentedly as he reads this.
V.
KOMARITZ.
I was soon at home at Komaritz, often passed weeks there, feeling extremely comfortable amid those strange surroundings,--for the life led in the clumsy, unadorned old house upon which the mediæval castle looked down was certainly a strange one.
In fact, the modern structure was no whit superior to the castle except in the matter of ugliness and in the fact that it possessed a roof. Otherwise it was almost as ruinous as the ruin, and had to be propped up in a fresh place every year. The long passages were paved with worn tiles; the ground-floor was connected with the upper stories by a steep winding staircase. The locks on the doors were either broken or the keys were lost, and the clocks, if they went at all, all pointed to different hours.
In a large room called the drawing-room, where the plaster was crumbling down from the ceiling bit by bit, there stood, among three-legged tables and threadbare arm-chairs, many an exquisite antique. In the rooms in use, on the other hand, there was no article of mere luxury: all was plain and useful, as in some parsonage. And yet there was something strangely attractive in this curious home. The rooms were of spacious dimensions; those on the ground-floor were all vaulted. The sunbeams forced their way through leafy vines and creepers into the deep embrasures of the windows. The atmosphere was impregnated with a delicious, mysterious fragrance,--an odour of mould, old wood, and dried rose-leaves. Harry maintained that it smelled of ghosts, and that there was a white lady who "walked" in the corner room next to the private chapel.
I must confess, in spite of my love for the old barrack, that it was not a fit baronial mansion. No one had ever lived there, save a steward, before Uncle Karl, who, as the youngest Leskjewitsch, inherited it, took up his abode there. He had, when he was first married, planned a new castle, but soon relinquished his intention, first for financial reasons, and then from dread of guests, a dread that seems to have become a chronic disease with him. When his wife died, all thought of any new structure had been given up. From that time he scarcely ever stayed there himself, and the old nest was good enough for a summer residence for the children. With the exception of Heda,--besides Harry there was a good-for-nothing small boy,--the children thought so too. They had a pathetic affection for the old place where they appeared each year with the flowers, the birds, and the sunshine. They seemed to me to belong to the spring. Everything was bright and warm about me when they came.