Think of Phillis. Her guardian's favourite lessons to her had been in history. He would read her passages at which her pulse would quicken and her eyes light up. Somehow these seemed all connected with the Tower. She constructed an imaginary Tower in her own mind, and peopled it with the ghosts of martyred lords and suffering ladies. But the palace of her soul was as nothing compared with the grim grey fortress that she saw. The knights of her imagination were poor creatures compared with these solid heroes of steel and iron on their wooden charges; the dungeon in which Raleigh pined was far more gloomy than any she had pictured; the ghosts of slain rebels and murdered princes gained in her imagination a place and surroundings worthy of their haunts. The first sight of London which an American visits is the Tower; the first place which the boy associates with the past, and longs to see, is that old pile beside the Thames.
Phillis came away at length, with a sigh of infinite satisfaction. On the way home she said nothing; but Jack saw, by her absorbed look, that the girl was happy. She was adjusting, bit by bit, her memories and her fancies with the reality. She was trying to fit the stories her guardian had read her so often with the chambers and the courts she had just seen.
Jack watched her stealthily. A great wave of passion roiled over the heart of this young man whenever he looked at this girl. He loved her: there was no longer any possible doubt of that: and she only liked him. What a difference! And to think that the French have only one word for both emotions! She liked to be with him, to talk to him, because he was young and she could talk to him. But love? Cold Dian was not more free from love.
"I can make most of it out," the girl said, turning to Jack. "All except Lady Jane Grey. I cannot understand at all about her. You must take me again. We will get that dear old beef-eater all by himself, and we will spend the whole day there, you and I together, shall we not?"
Then, after her wont, she put the Tower out of her mind and began to talk about what she saw. They passed a printseller's. She wanted to look at a picture in the window, and Jack stopped the cab and took her into the shop.
He observed, not without dismay, that she had not the most rudimentary ideas on the subject of purchase. She had only once been in a shop, and then, if I remember rightly, the bill was sent to Mr. Joseph Jagenal. Phillis turned over the engravings and photographs, and selected half a dozen.
Jack paid the bill next day. It was not much over fifteen pounds—a mere trifle to a Younger Son with four hundred a year. And then he had the pleasure of seeing the warm glow of pleasure in her eyes as she took the "Light of the World" from the portfolio. Pictures were her books, and she took them home to read.
At last, and all too soon, they came back to Carnarvon Square.
"Good-bye, Phil," said Jack, before he knocked at the door. "You have had a pleasant day?"
"Very pleasant, Jack; and all through you," she replied. "Oh, what a good thing for me that we became friends!"