“Mr. Carlisle, you have exposed yourself to great danger, and I do not forget that it was for my sake. I shall not be satisfied unless you promise me that you will take every possible precaution to avoid any future evil consequences. I should never forgive myself if any harm came to you.”
Her eyes lowered beneath the look he for one moment fixed upon her appealing face; then, with the exclamation, “An unblessed life is of little consequence,” he sprang from the carriage, and, saying to Giovanni, “I will summon Mrs. Grey,” he dashed up the stone staircase.
Assunta sank back with a feeling almost of despair at the task before her. Even if she had not to struggle with her own heart, it would have been hard enough to steer the right, straight course between these contradictory moods in her guardian; one moment so tender and thoughtful, the next so full of bitterness. How could she reconcile them? How should she ever be able to bear her burden, if this weight were added to it day by day?
Assunta possessed the gift—which, advanced to a higher degree, might be termed the natural science of the saints—of receiving religious impressions and suggestions from the natural objects about her. Now, as in a listless manner she looked around, her eyes fell upon the snow-crowned hills which bound the Roman horizon, and rested there. She had no thought of the classic associations [pg 781] which throng those mountain-sides and nestle in the valleys. She needed strength, and instantly the words were present to her mind: “I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from whence help shall come to me.” And following out the consoling train of thought, she passed from those peaceful Roman hills to Jerusalem and the mountains which surround it, even “as the Lord is round about his people.” Then, by a natural transition, she turned her thoughts to the poor woman who had just left behind her poverty, privation, and suffering, and, accompanied only by that hope and love which had endured and survived them all, had entered, so she confidently hoped, into the possession of God—the Beatific Vision. What a contrast between the temporal and eternal!
Her silent requiem for the departed soul was interrupted by Mrs. Grey's bright presence and merry voice.
“I cannot imagine what you have been doing to Severn,” she said; “but he is in one of his unaccountable conditions of mind, and declares that he will not go to drive—pressing business, etc. I am sure we can do without him very well, all but the reading part, which had been assigned to him. It is so late, at any rate, that perhaps we had better give up the baths, and drive at once to the cemetery. You see I have secured an excellent substitute for our recreant cavalier,” she added, as a gentleman emerged from the massive doorway. “Come, Mr. Sinclair, we are waiting for you.”
There was just a shade of stateliness in Assunta's manner as she greeted the somewhat elegant man of the world, who seated himself opposite to her. She would gladly have been dispensed from the drive altogether, feeling as she did then; nevertheless, she submitted to the necessity which could hardly be avoided.
“Truly, Miss Howard,” said Mr. Sinclair, as they drove away, “I begin to believe the ancient goddesses no myths. Flora herself would find in you a worthy rival. It is not often that I have the happiness to be placed opposite two such lovely ladies.”
“Very good for a finale, Mr. Sinclair,” replied Mrs. Grey; “but if you were to speak your mind, you would be calling me Ceres, or something else suggestive of the ‘sere and yellow leaf.’ ”
“That is a gross injustice, not only to me, but to yourself,” answered Mr. Sinclair in his most gallant tone. “Have not the poets ever vied with each other in disputes as to the respective merits of spring, with its freshness, and the rich bloom of early summer? And permit me to add that neither has yet been able to claim a victory. In such a presence it would be rash indeed for me to constitute myself a judge.”