She strove to gather about her mind the sacred thoughts and associations which the Christian finds in the heart of the Christian world, to dwarf with the grand interests of eternity the passing interests of time, and she was in some measure successful, to the extent, at least, of inspiring herself with resolution, if not with peace.
“Oh! how terrible is life,” she said, looking upward, as if to escape the sight of it. “How it catches us unawares, sometimes, and wrings the blood out of our hearts!” The prayer that always rose to her lips in any necessity, “We fly to thy patronage,” escaped them now; and then she swiftly and firmly read to herself her lesson: “I will be friendly and gentle toward him. I will neither seek him nor shrink from him, nor show any foolish consciousness, if I can help it; and I will not be angry with Isabel. If he should care for me in the way
I have thought, he will come every step of the way for me; if he should not, I shall not win either respect or affection by putting myself in his way. For the rest, I will trust my future with God.”
“Bianca,” said her sister’s voice at her elbow, “who do you think has come?”
Whatever might happen, it was a pleasure to meet him, and there was no effort or embarrassment in her greeting. That moment of pain and recollection had lifted her merely earthly affection so that it became touched with the serious sweetness of heavenly charity, as the mist, lifting at morning from the bosom of the river, where it has hung through the dark hours, grows silver in the upper light. She held out her hand and smiled. “You are welcome! Papa, here is an old friend of ours.”
The Signora was instantly all attention. Her own affairs were quite forgotten in those of her beloved young favorite. She was eager to see this man, to watch him, to understand him. If he should suit her and be good to Bianca, there was nothing she would not do for him; if he should be lacking in principle, or in kindness to her darling, woe to him! She would most certainly—
And here, just as she was meditating in what way she could most fittingly punish him without hurting any one else, he turned, at Mr. Vane’s introduction, and saluted her with a smile and glance that won her completely. It was not the meeting of two strangers. He had thought of his lady’s guardian with almost as much interest, perhaps, as she had thought of her friend’s lover, and had expected to find in her either a help or a hindrance. Her searching regard had
not disconcerted, then, but reassured him rather.
The Signora soon made an excuse to go into the house a moment, and left the Vanes and their visitor to renew their intercourse without interruption, and go through the mutual questioning of friends reunited after many and varied experiences. Returning quietly after a while, she stood in a corner of the loggia and observed them. Mr. Vane sat with a daughter at either side, and Marion stood opposite them, leaning back against the railing and talking. The moon shone in his face and flowed down his form, investing both, or revealing in both, a beauty inexpressibly noble and graceful. One might say that he looked as if he had been formed to music. A gold bronze color in his hair showed where the light struck fully, a flash of dusky blue came now and then from under his thick eye-lashes, and when he smiled one knew that his teeth were perfect and snowy white. His voice, too, was very pleasant, with a sound of laughter in it when he talked gayly—a laughter like that we fancy in a brook. It was as though his thoughts and fancies sparkled as they passed into the air.
“He is certainly fascinating,” the Signora thought. “I hope he does not try to be so.”