"English! of course not!" retorted her young lady-relative, pushing up the wreath to see how many stains she could count upon her bonnet, and who, since she crossed the channel, had been pleased to express a mania for every body and every thing that was foreign.
But the day at length wore away, with its pleasure, toil, and excitement; and not sorry were they, after their perpendicular descent, to find themselves safe in the inn at Chamouny.
Early the next morning they went out to visit the source of the Arveyron; but it calls for little notice here, and its description would scarcely be read after that of the Icy Sea. They were standing by the grove of pines that skirts the rivulet, bargaining with some little children for the minerals they so anxiously displayed, when the same couple they had seen the day before, amid the glaciers, advanced toward them, but this time quite unattended. The gentleman was attired in a sort of shooting-coat, his tall slender form appearing to advantage in this mode of dress; and the young lady was enveloped in a Cashmere, her lovely features colorless as ever; but she hastily shook her vail over them as she neared the strangers.
They had scarcely passed, when the gentleman, in drawing something from his pocket—a sketch-book it looked like—let fall a gold pencil-case, probably out of the book. It was unperceived by him, and he continued his way, the pencil-case rolling to the feet of John Rayner. He picked it up, and stepping after the stranger, returned it into his hand.
He proffered his thanks politely and very courteously. There was something extremely prepossessing in his manner when he spoke, and in his smile also, in spite of the hauteur visible in his features when they were at rest.
"He is an Englishman, then!" cried John's good aunt, who had been watching and listening.
"And a nobleman to boot," added John.
On the blood-red stone of the chased pencil-case was engraved an elaborate coat-of-arms, surmounted by a viscount's coronet.
During their quiet journey back to St. Martin, in the char-à-banc, they, having nothing better to do, began discussing the episode, as John Rayner himself named it. Miss Rayner, who, many years before, had owned a real countess for a godmother, and still boasted of a cousin—she did not say how many removes—in an embassador's lady, had, as a matter of course, all the peerage at her fingers' ends, and knew the names and ages of every body in it, as well as she did the Church Catechism. So she began speculating upon which of the peers' sons it was, and trying to recollect who among them had recently wedded.
"I have it!" she cried at last, "It is Lord L——. He was married just before we left England—to that old admiral's daughter, you know, John, with the wooden leg: he is something at the Admiralty. An exceedingly fine young man is Viscount L——, but so was his father before him, though I dare say he is altered now. He stood for our county in early life, and I saw him ride round the town the day of his election."