"Yes, but you may kiss him," said Anton gently, and leading her to where Antoine stood—"a cousin's kiss, you know—have you learned what that is?"
"No, I never had a cousin—at least, Antoine never kissed me," she said simply, and held up her sweet face to the young man, who bent and touched it with his lips.
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"I do not think I need say any more; but that is the story of the Silver Goblet," said our governess as she rang the bell for the strawberries and cream.
On the following evening the weather was so close and lowering that we had to remain indoors. It was one of those heavy days which sometimes occur in the summer months, when the whole atmosphere appears to be one low-hanging cloud, enveloping everything in a kind of dark-gray mist, that is only now and then pierced with red rays, and droops upon the distant fields in a straw-coloured vapour—the effect of the sunlight behind the atmosphere of mist.
"What a dim, uninviting evening!" said Miss Grantley as we stood at the window looking out at the garden, where the roses seemed to droop heavy-headed in the moisture-laden air, and the song of the birds was hushed, or only an occasional chirp was heard as one or two thrushes flashed from amidst the plum-trees, or a martin twittered beneath the eaves. "What a dim evening! It almost reminds one of a London fog—not a black fog, but a yellow one, such as one sees in the city sometimes on a late autumn afternoon or an evening in February."
"Oh! do tell us a story about London, Miss Grantley. You must know ever so much of the streets and places there, or how could you have learned so easily about Spitalfields and all that? Beside, you've lived in London, haven't you?"
"Well, yes. I was in London for more than two years, and near the city too, and I think I must have spent too much time in wandering about some of the quaint old streets and lanes, where there are rare old churches, and halls belonging to city companies, and ancient houses that once belonged to noblemen of the court of King James and King Charles, but are now used for counting-houses and warehouses, such of them as are not pulled down at least. I made some odd acquaintances too; and a kind old couple, who were caretakers at one of the smaller city halls, used to ask me to take tea with them, for the old gentleman had known my great-uncle Joseph, who was an East India merchant, and belonged to the company that used to meet in the hall. I think the old gentleman said he had been the 'master;' but at any rate his portrait was on the wall along with many others, and he was so like my dear father that I stood and cried, and often wished I could take the portrait itself away, but that of course was impossible."
Here Miss Grantley became silent, and we could see tears shining in her eyes, till Annie Bowers, who was standing near her, gently took her in her arms and kissed her on the cheek, and without saying a word held her round the waist.
"Well," resumed our governess, smiling, and pressing Annie's hand, "I was going to say that the old gentleman had kept a kind of diary or great memorandum-book, in which he had written—oh, in such a neat, stiff, stalky kind of hand!—all kinds of things that had happened among his friends and acquaintances for many years. He used to read it to me sometimes; and once, when I had to stay there in the little cozy parlour for a whole winter evening because of a downpour of rain, he asked me if I should mind his reading to me a little story that he had written about a very strange occurrence to an old friend of his who lived in just such another lane, near just such another old hall in the city. He said that he felt like Robinson Crusoe sometimes, except that his wife was there with him in that quiet island of bricks and mortar; and, like Robinson Crusoe, he had learned to put his narratives upon paper in quite a remarkable way, so that if I didn't mind listening he would read me a bit of a romance that was as true as anything I should be likely to get out of the circulating libraries.