Europe -- Description and travel -- Juvenile fiction; Young women -- Juvenile fiction
The most surprising of all she did not discover till she was going to
bed on the second night after their arrival, when she thought she knew
all about the mysterious doors and what they led to. A little
unexplained draught of wind made her candle flicker, and betrayed the
existence of still another door so cunningly hid in the wall pattern
that she had failed to notice it. She had quite a creepy feeling as she
drew her dressing-gown about her, took a light, and entered the narrow
passage into which it opened. It was not a long passage, and ended
presently in a tiny oratory. There was a little marble altar, with a
kneeling-step and candlesticks and a great crucifix above. Ends of wax
candles still remained in the candlesticks, and bunches of dusty paper
flowers filled the vases which stood on either side of them. A faded
silk cushion lay on the step. Doubtless the Bishop had often knelt
there. Katy felt as if she were the first person to enter the place
since he went away. Her common-sense told her that in a hotel bedroom
constantly occupied by strangers for years past, some one _must_ have
discovered the door and found the little oratory before her; but
common-sense is sometimes less satisfactory than romance. Katy liked to
think that she was the first, and to "make believe" that no one else
knew about it; so she did so, and invented legends about the place which
Amy considered better than any fairy story.
Before he left them Lieutenant Worthington had a talk with his sister
in the garden. She rather forced this talk upon him, for various
things were lying at her heart about which she longed for explanation;
but he yielded so easily to her wiles that it was evident he was not
averse to the idea.
"Come, Polly, don't beat about the bush any longer," he said at last,
amused and a little irritated at her half-hints and little feminine
_finesses_. "I know what you want to ask; and as there's no use
making a secret of it, I will take my turn in asking. Have I any chance,
do you think?"
"Any chance?--about Katy, do you mean? Oh, Ned, you make me so happy."
"Yes; about her, of course."
"I don't see why you should say 'of course,'" remarked his sister, with
the perversity of her sex, "when it's only five or six weeks ago that I
was lying awake at night for fear you were being gobbled up by that
Lilly Page."
"There was a little risk of it," replied her brother, seriously. "She's
awfully pretty and she dances beautifully, and the other fellows were
all wild about her, and--well, you know yourself how such things go. I
can't see now what it was that I fancied so much about her, I don't
suppose I could have told exactly at the time; but I can tell without
the smallest trouble what it is in--the other."
"In Katy? I should think so," cried Mrs. Ashe, emphatically; "the two
are no more to be compared than--than--well, bread and syllabub! You can
live on one, and you can't live on the other."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account