“He’s a fine fellow, and I wish—it seems a hard thing to say—that my grandson were more like him.”
“Well, well, Gilbert, you must just accept Lewis as he is, and make the best of him. I am afraid it would not be well for us if we could have people manufactured to our own liking. But, when all is said, I am not without hope that your grandson will ultimately prove to be everything that you could desire.”
They were still talking when a black-bordered letter, which had just arrived, was brought to Sir Gilbert.
“It is from my daughter-in-law, Mrs. Clare,” he said as he examined the postmarks before opening it. “From the mourning envelope, I judge that her venerable relative is dead.”
And such, indeed, proved to be the case. Giovanna wrote to say that her grandmother was no more, and that in the course of a few days she hoped to be on her way back to England. She had written twice to Sir Gilbert previously, just a few formal lines couched in studiously respectful terms, her first note containing the announcement of her arrival at Catanzaro, and her second conveying the news that her grandmother still lingered, but that all hope of her recovery had been given up. Brief and simple though the notes were, the composition of them had been anything but a labour of love to Giovanna. She had expended both time and pains over them, and, after all, had been far from satisfied with the result.
Sir Gilbert, however, had Giovanna but known it, was quite satisfied. To him his daughter-in-law’s brief formal communications seemed everything that the occasion demanded. He often thought about her, but never unkindly, and he looked forward to her proximate return with a certain amount of pleasure. He had begun to regard her as an agreeable element in the subdued tenour of his existence; and although Lady Pell far more than compensated for her absence, his cousin would not stay at the Chase for ever, indeed, she might take it into her head to start off at any moment, and when her ladyship should be gone Giovanna would step back into the place which for a little while she had unavoidably vacated.
He now gave Mrs. Clare’s note to Lady Pell to read.
“I suppose we may expect her back in about a week or ten days,” he presently remarked. “It will gratify me to introduce her to you. I think you will be pleased with her.”
Lady Pell’s sole reply was a little dubious cough. Liberal-minded though she was in many ways—indeed, she prided herself on being so—she was not, as a rule, prepossessed by foreigners. It was an insular prejudice, but one, unfortunately, which she shared in common with numbers of worthy people, who take credit to themselves for their narrow-mindedness, and are proud of boasting that they are “English to the backbone.”
“Her mother was an Englishwoman, as I think I have mentioned to you before to-day,” remarked Sir Gilbert with a little flash of the eye. “Consequently——”