It was only for a moment
she was left in doubt. Gustave bent down to whisper something in her
ear--something for which his letters had in some manner prepared her. The
fair young face brightened, the clear grey eyes looked up at me with a
sweet affectionate gaze, and she came to me and kissed me. "I shall love
you very much," she whispered. "And I love you very much already," I
answered, in the same confidential manner. And I think these few words,
that one pretty confiding look in her innocent eyes, made a tie between
us that it would take much to loosen. Ah, Lotta, what a wide gulf between
the Diana Paget who landed alone at St. Katharine's Wharf, in the dim
cheerless dawn, and uncertain where to find a shelter in all that busy
city, and the same creature redeemed by your affection, and exalted by
the love and trust of Gustave Lenoble!
After this my second daughter appeared--a pretty young hoyden, with
lovable clinging ways; and then the superioress asked if I would like to
see the garden. Of course I said yes; and we were taken through the long
corridors, out into a fine old garden, where the pupils, who looked like
the Hyde Lodge girls translated into French, were prancing and scampering
about in the usual style. After the garden we went to the chapel, where
there were more pictures, and flower-bedecked altars, and pale twinkling
tapers burning here and there in the chill sunlight.
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