“But you wouldn't have come down to Windsor without coming to see me, Mr. Belden?” and Marie-Celeste, suddenly realizing that her position was not the most dignified in the world, shut the portfolio together and stood up to receive him in more courteous fashion.
“Well, to be quite honest, Marie-Celeste,” for the half-truths of conventional acquaintance did not enter into this friendship, “I think I might; I'm nothing of a hand at calling, you know, but I'm awfully glad, I can tell you, to have met you just in this way, only you mustn't let me interrupt you. You keep right on with your copying, and I'll wander about till you've finished.”
“Oh, I had so much rather show you the chapel,” Marie-Celeste said eagerly. “I can finish the copying any time, and I know about it almost as well as the vergers themselves—will you let me?” evidently afraid that he would express a preference for a professional guide.
“Well, I can't imagine anything more delightful;” for which cordial endorsement Marie-Celeste blushed her thanks.
“Well,” she said, very much impressed with the dignity of the opportunity afforded her, “suppose we commence right here with this monument to the Prince Imperial. Of course you will have to let me tell you which are my favorites, and this is one of them. Somehow it seems to me the very saddest monument in all the chapel; but I think it was beautiful in Queen Victoria to have it placed here out of sympathy for the poor French Empress, who had lost everything—husband and kingdom, and, last of all, this brave son; for I think he must have been brave, don't you, Mr. Belden? The same sort of bravery that Leonard—you remember the 'Story of a Short Life,' don't you?”
“I do, indeed.”
“Well, I mean the same sort of bravery that Leonard would have shown if he had lived to grow up, as he so longed to do, to be a soldier like the Prince. And yet Leonard was just as brave in his own way, wasn't he? It was the prayer that the Prince wrote in his mass-book that I was copying; it is very beautiful, isn't it?”
There was no need for Mr. Belden to do aught but look and listen, and drop a word of assent now and then, when Marie-Celeste saw fit to impart her information in a somewhat interrogative form; and in this way they went on from monument to monument, giving of course but a passing glance to many and stopping longest, by tacit agreement, at those which had some special charm or attraction for Marie-Celeste.
“This is one of my greatest favorites,” she exclaimed enthusiastically, as they came to the late Dean Wellesley's monument, in the north aisle; and she stood in rapt admiration looking down at the beautiful recumbent figure. “Isn't that a glorious face, Mr. Belden?” she said in an earnest, low voice; “and I love what it says about him here on the side—'Trained in a school of duty and honor'—because his face bears it out, Mr. Belden. It shows, I think, how noble he must have been through and through all his life long.”
“What a little hero-worshipper you are, Marie-Celeste,” said 'Mr. Belden, looking kindly and thoughtfully down at her glowing face.