The Blue Lagoon: A Romance

ate and the warmth of the morning sun was filling th

aint bitterness of

ell kept, not trim, and sing the birds as loud as they might, they n

n stood a dial, inscribe

Pass and a

kney looking at her noticed again that uptilt of the head, and that far

across the broad veranda leading

emed laughing and scol

e you are. How often have I told you to put General Grant in the sun first

. Antique yet youthful, dressed as ladies were wont to dress of a mo

d Pinckney.

es; she put the cage down, shaded

me!" said M

he, as they came up t

least, took the girl by both hands, and hold

ed on Pinckne

rene. Well, of all the astonishing things in the

fume of stephanotis. Maria Pinckney had taken her literally to her heart, and was kissing her as people

Phyl had shewn him, over there in Ireland, that there were a lot of things in his mind and characte

fore me in the sun, Juliet dead those years and years." Then commanding herself, and

s your

s bringing

ou didn't drive, walked

lmost, and wondering what sin agains

it's the same thing. Here, come on both of you-the child must be starving. This is the breakfast room, Phyl-Phyl!

h the end of it, picked up a duster that the myster

rang a bell and ordered the coloured bo

y, sat down to table just as sh

int with hunger after her journey, and when Miss Pinckney came to on

ould just manage to seat four comfortably whilst the urn was brought in, a copper urn

ear her. There were times when this lady was almost rude-or seemed so owing to inattention, her bustling m

d, that old, perfect, delicately shaped hand, trembled ever so slightly as it measured the tea from the tortoise-shell covered tea caddy, an

ed a great effect on Maria Pinckney. No one knew

omitable, like the breath of winter would come the thought that a day would come-a day might come soon when he would be no longer ord

rounding her; Meeting Street had begun the weaving of this sp

at was filling the room, the room itself old-fashioned yet cheerful, chintzy and sunny, all the things had the faint familiarity of the street. It was as though the bl

and see that they don't knock the bannisters about. Abraham is all thumbs and has no more sense in moving things than Dinah has'n dusting them. Only last week when Mr

ckney's speech. She was Northern on the mother's side. But in he

ney l

urt much even if it falls," said he.

ss in the whole world) and seeming not to notice that Phyl's cup was empty, she was off on one of her mind wandering expeditions, a state of soul that sometimes carried her into the past,

on these

ame to the wedding, and all he brought was a carpet-bag. I can see the roses on it still. He wore a beaver hat. They'd been out of fashion for years and years. So was he. Twenty dollars apiece they cost him, and his clothes were the same. Looked like a picture out of Dickens. Your grandmother was there, too, came from Richmond for the wedding, drove h

ecause-well, I feel as if my people had always lived here-this feels like home-I don't know wha

a. Why didn't you ask, child?-What were you saying? The Virginia Mascarenes- Oh, they often came here, and your mother knew this house as well as Planters. That was the

was J

harles. I might have been their sister the way we all lived together and loved each other-and quarrelled. Dear me, dear me, what is Time at all that it leaves everything the same? The same sun, and flowers and houses, and all the people gone or changed- Well, I am trying to tell you- Rupert fell in love with Juliet Mascarene, who lived here. He was killed suddenly in '61- I don't want to talk of it-and she died of grief the year after. She died of grief-simply died of grief. Charles lived and married in 1880 when he was

"I was just the same about our place in Ireland,

id Miss Pinckney. Phyl

nolia trees where the red bird was singing and the jessamine casting its perfume. Ireland looked very f

at she found herself recognising with a little chill that this Past had separated itself fr

girl and leave a white woman wanting; but it appears to be the A'mighty knows his own business, so I don't grumble. Now I'm going to show you the house and your room. I've given you a room looking right on the garden, this side. You've noticed how all our houses here are built with their sides facing the street and their fronts facing the garden, or maybe you haven't noticed it yet, but you will. 'Pears to me our a

aking Richard Pinckney's life a tissue of small inconveniences, and suffering this

the breakfast-room an

seals at his fob. Oak, brought from England, formed the panelling, and a great old grandfather's clock, with the maker's name and address, "Whewel. Coggershall," blazoned on it

ternoons filled with the cawing of rooks and the drone of bees. English afternoons of the good old time when the dust of the post chaise was the only mark of hurry across miles of meadow land and cowslip weather

dream of England and the past, and ma

s Char

ring it in parts were prints, wood-cuts,

portrait of Jeff Davis, hollow-cheeked and goatee-bearded, and here was Mayflower, the property of Colonel S

ed, hung with portraits of long-faced gentlemen and ladies of old time, and then the drawing-room. A real drawing-room of the Sixties

ive years ago, the antimacassars on the armchairs were not a line out of position; not a speck of dust lay anywhere, and the Dresden shepherds and shephe

ne by Mary Mascarene, Juliet's sister, who died when she was fifteen; they mayn't be masterpieces but they're Mary's, and worth more'n if they were covered with gold. Mrs. Beamis sniffed when she came in here-she's the woman whose trunk got loose on the stairs I told

liar ghosts were in their places, then she shut the door with a snap, and turning, led the way u

ather cheap flower and sprig patterned paper, spring-like for all its cheapness,

the open window shewed across the verandah a bit of

. "It's one of the brightest in the hou

indow came the chi

they've rung for the last hundred years; they're the first thing I remember, and maybe they'll be the l

dor, opening doors and shewing rooms, and then up

isted perhaps by the great earthquake, though that had left it practically unharmed, shewed that deviation from the right line in cornice and wainscoting and door spa

frankly sagged in places, and the beams bellied

ckney. "We had wounded soldiers here in the war. What Vernons hasn't

real old bottle-glass worth its weight in

he nursery

secrecy that haunts rooms long closed and deserted. An old-fashioned paper shewing birds of Paradise covered the walls. A paper so old that Miss Pinckney r

st stuffy owing to the windows being shut. A rocking-horse, much, much the worse for wear stood in one corner, he was piebald and the beam of light just failed to touch his brush-like tail. A Noah'

ining an instalment of "Little Dorrit," Caroline Chesebro's "Children of Light," and Samuel Iren?us Prime's "Elizabeth Thornton or the Flower and Fruit of Female Piety, and other Sketches." Miss Pinckney o

aper. Kilgobbin nursery was papered with a paper giving an endless repetition of one subject-a man driving a pig to market-with that exception, the two room

nt of the blue harbour. Just the picture to fill an imaginative child's mind with all sorts of pleasant fancies about the world, and Phyl, forgetting for a moment Miss Pinckney,

h. Not the world we live in, but the world worth living in. Old sailor-stories, old scraps of thought and dreams from nowhere pu

o seem energetic and spoil the view. That's a N'Yorker in two words, happy so long as he's energetic and spoiling views-" Then gazing dreamily towards the touch of

and her eye fell on the grea

t, she ope

ave forgotten the presence of Phyl. Holding the chest's

the lid of the c