He walked out of this little room and made his way to the front-door, fancying that Brand would immediately follow. But Brand returned to that room, and opened the case of miniatures. Then he took from his pocket a little parcel, and unrolled it: it was a portrait of Natalie—a photograph on porcelain, most delicately colored, and surrounded with an antique silver frame. He gazed for a minute or two at the beautiful face, and somehow the eyes seemed sad to him. Then he placed the little portrait—which itself looked like a miniature—next the miniature of his mother, and shut the case and locked it.
"I beg your pardon, Evelyn, for keeping you waiting," he
said, at the front-door. "Will you particularly remember this—that none of the portraits here are to be disturbed on any account whatever?"
CHAPTER XLVII.
AT PORTICI.
Natalie slept far from soundly the first night after her arrival in Naples; she was glad when the slow, anxious hours, with all their bewildering uncertainties and forebodings, were over. She rose early, and dressed quickly; she threw open the tall French windows to let in the soft silken air from the sea; then she stepped out on the balcony to marvel once more—she who knew Naples well enough—at the shining beauty around her.
It was a morning to give courage to any one; the air was fresh and sweet; she drank deep of the abundant gladness and brightness of the world. The great plain of waters before her shimmered and sparkled in millions of diamonds; with here and there long splashes of sunny green, and here and there long splashes of purple where the sea-weed showed through. The waves sprung white on the projecting walls of the Castello dell' Ovo, and washed in on the shore with a soft continuous murmur; the brown-sailed fishing-boats went by, showing black or red as they happened to be in sunshine or shadow. Then far away beyond the shining sea the island of Capri lay like a blue cloud on the horizon; and far away beyond the now awakening city near her rose Vesuvius, the twin peaks dark under some swathes of cloud, the sunlight touching the lower slopes into a yellowish green, and shining on the pink fringe of villas along the shore. On so fair and bright a morning hope came as natural to her as singing to a bird. The fears of the night were over; she could not be afraid of what such a day should bring forth.
And yet—and yet—from time to time—and just for a second or so—her heart seemed to stand still. And she was so silent and preoccupied at breakfast, that her mother remarked it; and Natalie had to excuse herself by saying that she was a little tired with the travelling. After breakfast she led her mother into the reading-room, and said, in rather an excited way,