Penelope's English Experiences Part 11

I. "Suppose we compromise. My sitting-room is just below; will you walk in and look at my sketches until I come? You needn't ring; the bell is overgrown with honeysuckle and there is no one to answer it; it might almost be an American hotel, but it is Arcadia!"

He. "It is Paradise; and alas! here comes the serpent!"

I. "It isn't a serpent; it is the kindest landlady in England.--Mrs.

Bobby, this gentleman is a dear friend of mine from America. Mr.

Beresford, this is Mrs. Bobby, the most comfortable hostess in the world, and the owner of the cottage, the canaries, the tea-tables, and the baby.--The reason Mr. Beresford was so thirsty, Mrs. Bobby, was that he has walked here from Great Belvern, so we must give him some supper before he returns."

Mrs. B. "Certainly, miss, he shall have the best in the 'ouse, you can depend upon that."

He. "Don't let me interfere with your usual arrangements. I am not hungry--for food; I shall do very well until I get back to the hotel."

I. "Indeed you will not, sir! Billy shall pull some tomatoes and lettuce, Tommy shall milk the cow, and Mrs. Bobby shall make you a savory omelet that Delmonico might envy. Hark! Is that our fowl cackling? It is,--at half-past six! She heard me mention omelet and she must be calling, 'Now I lay me down to sleep.'"

But all that is many days ago, and there are no more experiences to relate at present. We are making history very fast, Willie Beresford and I, but much of it is sacred history, and so I cannot chronicle it for any one's amus.e.m.e.nt.

Mrs. Beresford is here, or at least she is in Great Belvern, a few miles distant. I am not painting, these latter days. I have turned the artist side of my nature to the wall just for a bit, and the woman side is having full play. I do not know what the world will think about it, if it stops to think at all, but I feel as if I were 'right side out' for the first time in my life; and when I take up my brushes again, I shall have a new world within from which to paint,--yes, and a new world without.

Good-bye, dear Belvern! Autumn and winter may come into my life, but whenever I think of you it will be summer-time in my heart. I shall hear the tinkle of the belled sheep on the hillsides; inhale the fragrance of the flowering vine that climbed in at my cottage window; relive in memory the days when Love and I first walked together, hand in hand.

Dear days of happy idleness; of dreaming dreams and seeing visions; of morning walks over the hills; of 'bread-and-cheese and kisses' at noon, with kind Mrs. Bobby hovering like a plump guardian angel over the simple feast; afternoon tea under the friendly shades of the yew-tree, and parting at the wicket-gate. I can see him pa.s.s the clock-tower, the little greengrocer shop, the old stocks, the green pump; then he is at the turn of the road where the stone wall and the hawthorn hedge will presently hide him from my view. I fly up to my window, push back the vines, catch his last wave of the hand. I would call him back, if I dared; but it would be no easier to let him go the second time, and there is always to-morrow. Thank G.o.d for to-morrow! And if there should be no to-morrow? Then thank G.o.d for to-day! And so good-bye again, dear Belvern! It was in the lap of your lovely hills that Penelope first knew das irdische Gluck; that she first loved, first lived; forgot how to be artist, in remembering how to be woman.