The Lady Paramount

  III

  Susanna was seated on the moss, at the roots of a wide-spreading oak.She was leaning back, so that she could look up, up, through vistas ofchanging greens,--black-green to gold-green,--through a thousandlabyrinthine avenues and counter-avenues of leaves and branches, withbroken shafts of sunlight caught in them here and there, to theglimpses of blue sky visible beyond. The tree gave you a sense ofgreat spaces, and depths, and differences, like a world; and it wasfull of life, like a city. Birds came and went and hopped from boughto bough, twittering importantly of affairs to them important;squirrels scampered over the rough bark, in sudden panic haste, dartinglittle glances, sidewise and behind, after pursuers that (we will hope)were fancied; and other birds, out of sight in the loftier regions,piped their insistent calls, or sang their tireless epithalamiums.Spiders hung in their gossamer lairs, only too tensely motionless notto seem dead; but if a gnat came--with what swift, accurate, andrelentless vigour they sprang upon and garotted him. Sometimes a twigsnapped, or a young acorn fell, or a caterpillar let himself down by along silken thread. And the air under the oak was tonic with its goodoaken smell.

  Susanna was leaning back in a sort of reverie, held by the charm ofthese things. "We have no trees like this in Italy," she was vaguelythinking. "The trees and the wild creatures are never so near to onethere; one never gets so intimate with them; Nature is not soaccessible and friendly." She remembered having read somewhere thatsuch enjoyment as she was now experiencing, the enjoyment of communewith the mere sweet out-of-door things of the earth, was a Paganenjoyment, and un-Christian; and her mind revolted at this, and shethought, "No. There would n't be any enjoyment, if one did n't knowthat 'God's in His Heaven, all 's right with the world.'"

  And just then her reverie was interrupted. . .

  "He has arrived. I have seen him--what you call _seen_--with my owneyes seen. There are about two yards of him; and a very spruce,gentlemanlike, well-knit, and attractive two yards they are."

  Thus, with a good deal of animation, in a pleasant, crisp old voice,thus spoke Miss Sandus: a little old lady in black: little and verydaintily finished, with a daintily-chiselled profile, and a neat,small-framed figure; in a black walking-skirt, that was short enough todisclose a small, high-instepped, but eminently business-like pair ofbrown boots. Miss Sandus (she gave you her word for it) wasseventy-four;--and indeed (so are the generations linked), her fatherhad been a middie with Nelson at Trafalgar, and a lieutenant aboard the_Bellerophon_ during that ship's historic voyage to St. Helena;--butshe confronted you with the lively eyes, the firm cheeks, the freshcomplexion, the erect and active carriage, of a well-preserved woman ofsixty; and in her plentiful light-brown hair there was scarcely athread of grey. She stepped trippingly across the grass, swinging amalacca walking-stick, with a silver crook-handle.

  "He has arrived. I 've seen him."

  So her voice broke in upon Susanna's musings; and Susanna started, andgot up. She was wearing a muslin frock to-day, white, with a patternof flowers in mauve; and she was without a hat, so that one could seehow her fine black hair grew low about her brow, and thence swept awayin loose full billows, and little crinkling over-waves, to where itdrooped in a rich mass behind. But as she stood, awaiting MissSandus's approach, her face was pale, and her eyes were wide open anddark, as if with fright.

  "Dear me, child. Did I startle you? I 'm so sorry," said Miss Sandus,coming up to her. "Yes, Don Antonio has arrived. I saw him as hedisembarked at his native railway-station. I was ordering a book atSmith's. And such luggage, my dear. Boxes and bags, bags and boxes,till you could n't count them; and all of stout brown leather--so niceand manny. He looks nice and manny himself: tall, with nice mannyclothes, and nice eyes, and a nice brown skin; and with a nose, mydear, a nose like Julius Caesar's. Well, you 'll meet him on Sunday,at your Papistical place of worship,--if he does n't call before. Idaresay he 'll think himself obliged to."

  "Oh, Fairy Godmother," gasped Susanna, faintly; "feel."

  She took Miss Sandus's hand, and pressed it against her side.

  "Feel how my heart is beating."

  "Mercy!" exclaimed Miss Sandus.