Eleanor Read Online Free PDF

of a bean-field in flower flooded the salon.
    Miss Foster sprang to her feet and followed Mrs. Burgoyne. She hung over the balcony while her companion pointed here and there, to the line of the Appian Way,—to those faint streaks in the darkness that marked the distant city—to the dim blue of the Etrurian mountains.—
    Presently, however, she drew herself erect, and Mrs. Burgoyne fancied that she shivered.
    ‘Ah! this is a hill-air,’ she said, and she took from her arm a light evening cloak, and threw it round Miss Foster.
    ‘Oh, I am not cold!—It wasn’t that!’
    ‘What was it?’ said Mrs. Burgoyne pleasantly. ‘That you feel Italy too much for you? Ah! you must got used to that.’
    Lucy Foster drew a long breath—a breath of emotion. She was grateful for being understood. But she could not express herself.
    Mrs. Burgoyne looked at her curiously.
    ‘Did you read a good deal about it before you came?’
    ‘Well, I read some—we have a good town library—and Uncle Ben gave me two or three books—but of course it wasn’t like Boston. Ours is a little place.’
    ‘And you were pleased to come?’
    The girl hesitated.
    ‘Yes’—she said simply. ‘I wanted to come.—But I didn’t want to leave my uncle. He is getting quite an old man.’
    ‘And you have lived with him a long time?’
    ‘Since I was a little thing. Mother and I came to live with him after Father died. Then Mother died, five years ago.’
    ‘And you have been alone—and very good friends?’
    Mrs. Burgoyne smiled kindly. She had a manner of questioning that seemed to Miss Foster the height of courtesy. But the girl did not find it easy to answer.
    ‘I have no one else—’ she said at last, and then stopped abruptly.
    ‘She is home-sick’—said Mrs. Burgoyne inwardly—‘I wonder whether the Lewinsons treated her nicely at Florence?’
    Indeed as Lucy Foster leant over the balcony, the olive-gardens and vineyards faded before her. She saw in their stead, the snow-covered farms and fields of a New England valley—the elms in along village street, bare and wintry—a rambling wooden house—a glowing fire, in a simple parlour—an old man sitting beside it.—
    It
is
chilly’—said Mrs. Burgoyne—‘Let us go in. But we will keep the window open. Don’t take that off.’
    She laid a restraining hand on the girl’s arm. Miss Foster sat down absently not far from the window. The mingled lights of lamp and moon fell upon her, upon the noble rounding of the face, which was grave, a little austere even, but still sensitive and delicate. Her black hair, thanks to Mrs. Burgoyne’s devices, rippled against the brow and cheek, almost hiding the small ear. The graceful cloak, with its touches of sable on a main fabric of soft white, hid the ugly dress; its ample folds heightened the natural dignity of the young form and long limbs, lent them a stately and muse-like charm. Mrs. Burgoyne and Miss Manisty looked at each other, then at Miss Foster. Both of them had the same curious feeling, as though a veil were being drawn away from something they were just beginning to see.
    ‘You must be very tired, my dear’—said Miss Manisty at last, when she and Mrs. Burgoyne had chatted a good deal, and the new-comer still sat silent—‘I wonder what you are thinking about so intently?’
    Miss Foster woke up at once.
    ‘Oh, I’m not a bit tired—not a bit! I was thinking—I was thinking of that photograph in the next room—and a line of poetry.’
    She spoke with the
naivete
of one who had not known how to avoid the confession. ‘What line?’ said Mrs. Burgoyne.
    ‘It’s Milton. I learnt it at school. You will know it, of course,’ she said timidly. ‘It’s the line about “the triple tyrant” and “the Babylonian woe”’—
    Mrs. Burgoyne laughed.
‘Their martyred blood and ashes sow O’er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway The triple tyrant—
    Was that what you were thinking of?’
    Miss Foster had coloured