The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ used to think it very lonely when I came here first, but I believe I should be sorry to leave it now,” said Julia, calmly.

      “There, my Lord,” said Marion, “you are to pick your answer out of that.”

      “As to those resources which you are so flattering as to call my gifts and graces,” said Julia, laughing, “such of them at least as lighten the solitude were all learned here, I never took to gardening before; I never fed poultry.”

      “Oh, Julia! have mercy on our illusions!”

      “You must tell me what they are, before I can spare them. The curate’s sister has no claim to be thought an enchanted princess.”

      “It is all enchantment!” said Lord Culduff, who had only very imperfectly caught what she said.

      “Then, I suppose, my Lord,” said Marion, haughtily, “I ought to rescue you before the spell is complete, as I came here in quality of guide.” And she rose as she spoke. “The piano has not been opened to-day, Julia. I take it you seldom sing of a morning?”

      “Very seldom, indeed.”

      “So I told Lord Culduff; but I promised him his recompense in the evening. You are coming to us to-morrow, ain’t you?”

      “I fear not. I think George made our excuses. We are to have Mr. Longworth and a French friend of his here with us.”

      “You see, my Lord, what a gay neighborhood we have; here is a rival dinner-party,” said Marion.

      “There’s no question of a dinner; they come to tea, I assure you,” said Julia, laughing.

      “No, my Lord, it’s useless; quite hopeless. I assure you she ‘ll not sing for you of a morning.” This speech was addressed to Lord Culduff, as he was turning over some music-books on the piano.

      “Have I your permission to look at these?” said he to Julia, as he opened a book of drawings in water-colors.

      “Of course, my Lord. They are mere sketches taken in the neighorhood here, and, as you will see, very hurriedly done.” \

      “And have you such coast scenery as this?” asked he, in some astonishment, while he held up a rocky headland of several hundred feet, out of the caves at whose base a tumultuous sea was tumbling.

      “I could show you finer and bolder bits than even that.”

      “Do you hear, my Lord?” said Marion, in a low tone, only audible to himself. “The fair Julia is offering to be your guide. I ‘m afraid it is growing late. One does forget time at this cottage. It was only the last day I came here I got scolded for being late at dinner.”

      And now ensued one of those little bustling scenes of shawling and embracing with which young ladies separate. They talked together, and laughed, and kissed, and answered half-uttered sentences, and even seemed after parting to have something more to say; they were by turns sad, and playful, and saucy – all of these moods being duly accompanied by graceful action, and a chance display of a hand or foot, as it might be, and then they parted.

      “Well, my Lord,” said Marion, as they ascended the steep path that led homewards, “what do you say now? Is Julia as cold and impassive as you pronounced her, or are you ungrateful enough to ignore fascinations all displayed and developed for your own especial captivation?”

      “It was very pretty coquetry, all of it,” said he, smiling. “Her eyelashes are even longer than I thought them.”

      “I saw that you remarked them, and she was gracious enough to remain looking at the drawing sufficiently long to allow you full time for the enjoyment.”

      The steep and rugged paths were quite as much as Lord Culduff could manage without talking, and he toiled along after her in silence, till they gained the beach.

      “At last a bit of even ground,” exclaimed he, with a sigh.

      “You’ll think nothing of the hill, my Lord, when you’ve come it three or four times,” said she, with a malicious twinkle of the eye.

      “Which is precisely what I have no intention of doing.”

      “What! not cultivate the acquaintance so auspiciously opened?”

      “Not at this price,” said he, looking at his splashed boots.

      “And that excursion, that ramble, or whatever be the name for it, you were to take together?”

      “It is a bliss, I am afraid, I must deny myself.”

      “You are wrong, my Lord, – very wrong. My brothers at least assure me that Julia is charming en tête-à-tête. Indeed, Augustus says one does not know her at all till you have passed an hour or two in such confidential intimacy. He says ‘she comes out’ – whatever that may be – wonderfully.”

      “Oh, she comes out, does she?” said he, caressing his whiskers.

      “That was his phrase for it. I take it to mean that she ventures to talk with a freedom more common on the Continent than in these islands. Is that coming out, my Lord?”

      “Well, I half suspect it is,” said he, smiling faintly.

      “And I suppose men like that?”

      “I ‘m afraid, my dear Miss Bramleigh,” said he, with a mock air of deploring – “I ‘m afraid that in these degenerate days men are very prone to like whatever gives them least trouble in everything, and if a woman will condescend to talk to us on our own topics, and treat them pretty much in our own way, we like it, simply because it diminishes the distance between us, and saves us that uphill clamber we are obliged to take when you insist upon our scrambling up to the high level you live in.”

      “It is somewhat of an ignoble confession you have made there,” said she, haughtily.

      “I know it – I feel it – I deplore it,” said he, affectedly.

      “If men will, out of mere indolence – no matter,” said she, biting her lip. “I ‘ll not say what I was going to say.”

      “Pray do. I beseech you finish what you have so well begun.”

      “Were I to do so, my Lord,” said she, gravely, “it might finish more than that. It might at least go some way towards finishing our acquaintanceship. I ‘m sorely afraid you ‘d not have forgiven me had you heard me out.”

      “I ‘d never have forgiven myself, if I were the cause of it.”

      For some time they walked along in silence, and now the great house came into view – its windows all glowing and glittering in the blaze of a setting sun, while a faint breeze lazily moved the heavy folds of the enormous flag that floated over the high tower.

      “I call that a very princely place,” said he, stopping to admire it.

      “What a caprice to have built it in such a spot,” said she. “The country people were not far wrong when they called it Bishop’s Folly.”

      “They gave it that name, did they?”

      “Yes, my Lord. It is one of the ways in which humble folk reconcile themselves СКАЧАТЬ