"I hope, dear, thou wilt not expire on the journey home."
The coaches were at the gate before Papillon had finished dinner, and
Mademoiselle was in great haste to be gone, reminding her pupil that she
had travelled so far against her will and at the hazard of angering Madame
la Baronne.
"Madame la Baronne will be enraptured when she knows what I have done to
please her," answered Papillon, and then, with a last parting embrace,
hugging her aunt's fair neck more energetically than ever, she whispered,
"I shall tell Denzil. You will make us all happy."
A cloud of dust, a clatter of hoofs, Ma'amselle's screams as the carriage
rocked while she was mounting the steps, and with much cracking of whips
and swearing at horses from the postillions who had taken their fill of
home-brewed ale, hog's harslet, and cold chine, and, lo, the brilliant
vision of the Honourable Henrietta Maria and her train vanished in the dust
of the summer highway, and Angela went slowly back to the long green walk
beside the fish-pond, where she was in as silent a solitude, but for a
lingering nightingale or two, as if she had been in the palace of the
sleeping beauty. If all things slumbered not, there was at least as marked
a pause in life.
Pages:
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568