Americans -- Italy -- Fiction; New England -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
“Goodness, I forgot all about Mr. Milray's breakfast!” She ran back to
the table she had left on the other side of the room.
“Who is that, Clementina?” asked Mrs. Lander, on their way to their
rooms. Clementina explained as well as she could, and Mrs. Lander summed
up her feeling in the verdict, “Well, she's a lady, if ever I saw a
lady; and you don't see many of 'em, nowadays.”
The girl remembered how Mrs. Milray had once before seemed very fond of
her, and had afterwards forgotten the pretty promises and professions
she had made her. But she went with Mrs. Lander to see her, and she saw
Mr. Milray, too, for a little while. He seemed glad of their meeting,
but still depressed by the bereavement which Mrs. Milray supported
almost with gayety. When he left them she explained that he was a good
deal away from her, with his family, as she approved of his being,
though she had apparently no wish to join him in all the steps of the
reconciliation which the mother's death had brought about among them.
Sometimes his sisters came to the hotel to see her, but she amused
herself perfectly without them, and she gave much more of her leisure to
Clementina and Mrs. Lander.
She soon knew the whole history of the relation between them, and the
first time that Clementina found her alone with Mrs. Lander she could
have divined that Mrs. Lander had been telling her of the Fane affair,
even if Mrs. Milray had not at once called out to her, “I know all about
it; and I'll tell you what, Clementina, I'm going to take you over
with me and marry you to an English Duke. Mrs. Lander and I have been
planning it all out, and I'm going to send down to the steamer office,
and engage your passage. It's all settled!”
When she was gone, Mrs. Lander asked, “What do you s'pose your folks
would say to your goin' to Europe, anyway, Clementina?” as if the matter
had been already debated between them.
Clementina hesitated. “I should want to be su'a, Mrs. Milray really
wanted me to go ova with her.”
“Why, didn't you hear her say so?” demanded Mrs. Lander.
“Yes,” sighed Clementina. “Mrs. Lander, I think Mrs. Milray means what
she says, at the time, but she is one that seems to forget.”
“She thinks the wo'ld of you,” Mrs. Lander urged.
“She was very nice to me that summer at Middlemount. I guess maybe she
would like to have us go with her,” the girl relented.
“I guess we'll wait and see,” said Mrs. Lander. “I shouldn't want she
should change her mind when it was too late, as you say.” They were
both silent for a time, and then Mrs. Lander resumed, “But I presume she
ha'n't got the only steams that's crossin'. What should you say about
goin' over on some otha steams? I been South a good many wintas, and I
should feel kind of lonesome goin' round to the places where I been with
Mr. Landa. I felt it since I been here in this hotel, some, and I can't
seem to want to go ova the same ground again, well, not right away.”
Clementina said, “Why, of cou'se, Mrs. Landa.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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