Eleanor | Page 6

rose up the memory of little Mrs. Lewinson at
Florence--of her gently pursed lips--of the looks that were meant to be
kind, and were in reality so critical.
No matter. The choice had to be made; and she chose at last a blue and
white check that seemed to have borne its travels better than the rest. It
had looked so fresh and striking in the window of the shop whence she
had bought it. 'And you know, Miss Lucy, you're so tall, you can stand
them chancy things'--her little friend had said to her, when she had
wondered whether the check might not be too large.
And yet only with a passing wonder. She could not honestly say that
her dress had cost her much thought then or at any other time. She had
been content to be very simple, to admire other girls' cleverness. There
had been influences upon her own childhood, however, that had
somehow separated her from the girls around her, had made it difficult
for her to think and plan as they did.
She rose with the dress in her hands, and as she did so, she caught the
glory of the sunset through the open window.
She ran to look, all her senses flooded with the sudden beauty,--when
she heard a man's voice as it seemed close beside her. Looking to the
left, she distinguished a balcony, and a dark figure that had just
emerged upon it.
Mr. Manisty--no doubt! She closed her window hurriedly, and began
her dressing, trying at the time to collect her thoughts on the subject of
these people whom she had come to visit.
Yet neither the talk of her Boston cousins, nor the gossip of the
Lewinsons at Florence had left any very clear impression. She
remembered well her first and only sight of Miss Manisty at Boston.
The little spinster, so much a lady, so kind, cheerful and agreeable, had
left a very favourable impression in America. Mr. Manisty had left an

impression too--that was certain--for people talked of him perpetually.
Not many persons, however, had liked him, it seemed. She could
remember, as it were, a whole track of resentments, hostilities, left
behind. 'He cares nothing about us'--an irate Boston lady had said in her
hearing--but he will exploit us! He despises us,--but he'll make plenty
of speeches and articles out of us--you'll see!'
As for Major Lewinson, the husband of Mr. Manisty's first cousin,--she
had been conscious all the time of only half believing what he said, of
holding out against it. He must be so different from Mr. Manisty--the
little smart, quick-tempered soldier--with his contempt for the
undisciplined civilian way of doing things. She did not mean to
remember his remarks. For after all, she had her own ideas of what Mr.
Manisty would be like. She had secretly formed her own opinion. He
had been a man of letters and a traveller before he entered politics. She
remembered--nay, she would never forget--a volume of letters from
Palestine, written by him, which had reached her through the free
library of the little town near her home. She who read slowly, but,
when she admired, with a silent and worshipping ardour, had read this
book, had hidden it under her pillow, had been haunted for days by its
pliant sonorous sentences, by the colour, the perfume, the melancholy
of pages that seemed to her dreaming youth marvellous, inimitable.
There were descriptions of a dawn at Bethlehem--a night wandering at
Jerusalem--a reverie by the sea of Galilee--the very thought of which
made her shiver a little, so deeply had they touched her young and pure
imagination.
And then--people talked so angrily of his quarrel with the
Government--and his resigning. They said he had been foolish, arrogant,
unwise. Perhaps. But after all it had been to his own hurt--it must have
been for principle. So far the girl's secret instinct was all on his side.
Meanwhile, as she dressed, there floated through her mind fragments of
what she had been told as to his strange personal beauty; but these she
only entertained shyly and in passing. She had been brought up to think
little of such matters, or rather to avoid thinking of them.
She went through her toilette as neatly and rapidly as she could, her

mind all the time so full of speculation and a deep restrained
excitement that she ceased to trouble herself in the least about her gown,
As for her hair, she arranged it almost mechanically, caring only that its
black masses should be smooth and in order. She fastened at her throat
a small turquoise brooch that had been her mother's; she clasped the
two little chain bracelets that were the only ornaments of the kind she
possessed, and then without a single