第16章

Elfride entered the gallery,and Stephen followed her without seeming to do so.It was a long sombre apartment,enriched with fittings a century or so later in style than the walls of the mansion.Pilasters of Renaissance workmanship supported a cornice from which sprang a curved ceiling,panelled in the awkward twists and curls of the period.The old Gothic quarries still remained in the upper portion of the large window at the end,though they had made way for a more modern form of glazing elsewhere.

Stephen was at one end of the gallery looking towards Elfride,who stood in the midst,beginning to feel somewhat depressed by the society of Luxellian shades of cadaverous complexion fixed by Holbein,Kneller,and Lely,and seeming to gaze at and through her in a moralizing mood.The silence,which cast almost a spell upon them,was broken by the sudden opening of a door at the far end.

Out bounded a pair of little girls,lightly yet warmly dressed.

Their eyes were sparkling;their hair swinging about and around;their red mouths laughing with unalloyed gladness.

Ah,Miss Swancourt:dearest Elfie!we heard you.Are you going to stay here?You are our little mamma,are you not--our big mamma is gone to London,said one.

Let me tiss you,said the other,in appearance very much like the first,but to a smaller pattern.

Their pink cheeks and yellow hair were speedily intermingled with the folds of Elfrides dress;she then stooped and tenderly embraced them both.

Such an odd thing,said Elfride,smiling,and turning to Stephen.They have taken it into their heads lately to call me "little mamma,"because I am very fond of them,and wore a dress the other day something like one of Lady Luxellians.

These two young creatures were the Honourable Mary and the Honourable Kate--scarcely appearing large enough as yet to bear the weight of such ponderous prefixes.They were the only two children of Lord and Lady Luxellian,and,as it proved,had been left at home during their parentstemporary absence,in the custody of nurse and governess.Lord Luxellian was dotingly fond of the children;rather indifferent towards his wife,since she had begun to show an inclination not to please him by giving him a boy.

All children instinctively ran after Elfride,looking upon her more as an unusually nice large specimen of their own tribe than as a grown-up elder.It had now become an established rule,that whenever she met them--indoors or out-of-doors,weekdays or Sundays--they were to be severally pressed against her face and bosom for the space of a quarter of a minute,and other--wise made much of on the delightful system of cumulative epithet and caress to which unpractised girls will occasionally abandon themselves.

A look of misgiving by the youngsters towards the door by which they had entered directed attention to a maid-servant appearing from the same quarter,to put an end to this sweet freedom of the poor Honourables Mary and Kate.

I wish you lived here,Miss Swancourt,piped one like a melancholy bullfinch.