THE next morning Kenelm surprised the party at breakfast by appearing in the coarse habiliments in which he had first made his host’s acquaintance. He did not glance towards Cecilia when he announced his departure; but, his eye resting on Mrs. Campion, he smiled, perhaps a little sadly, at seeing her countenance brighten up and hearing her give a short sigh of relief. Travers tried hard to induce him to stay a few days longer, but Kenelm was firm. “The summer is wearing away,” said he, “and I have far to go before the flowers fade and the snows fall. On the third night from this I shall sleep on foreign soil.”
“You are going abroad, then?” asked Mrs. Campion.
“Yes.”
“A sudden resolution, Mr. Chillingly. The other day you talked of visiting the Scotch lakes.”
“True; but, on reflection, they will be crowded with holiday tourists, many of whom I shall probably know. Abroad I shall be free, for I shall be unknown.”
“I suppose you will be back for the hunting season,” said Travers.
“I think not. I do not hunt foxes.”
“Probably we shall at all events meet in London,” said Travers. “I think, after long rustication, that a season or two in the bustling capital may be a salutary change for mind as well as for body; and it is time that Cecilia were presented and her court-dress specially commemorated in the columns of the ‘Morning Post.’”
Cecilia was seemingly too busied behind the tea-urn to heed this reference to her debut.
“I shall miss you terribly,” cried Travers, a few moments afterwards, and with a hearty emphasis. “I declare that you have quite unsettled me. Your quaint sayings will be ringing in my ears long after you are gone.”
There was a rustle as of a woman’s dress in sudden change of movement behind the tea-urn.
“Cissy,” said Mrs. Campion, “are we ever to have our tea?”
“I beg pardon,” answered a voice behind the urn. “I hear Pompey” (the Skye terrier) “whining on the lawn. They have shut him out. I will be back presently.”
Cecilia rose and was gone. Mrs. Campion took her place at the tea-urn.
“It is quite absurd of Cissy to be so fond of that hideous dog,” said Travers, petulantly.
“Its hideousness is its beauty,” returned Mrs. Campion, laughing. “Mr. Belvoir selected it for her as having the longest back and the shortest legs of any dog he could find in Scotland.”
“Ah, George gave it to her; I forgot that,” said Travers, laughing pleasantly.
It was some minutes before Miss Travers returned with the Skye terrier, and she seemed to have recovered her spirits in regaining that ornamental accession to the party; talking very quickly and gayly, and with flushed cheeks, like a young person excited by her own overflow of mirth.
But when, half an hour afterwards, Kenelm took leave of her and Mrs. Campion at the hall-door, the flush was gone, her lips were tightly compressed, and her parting words were not audible. Then, as his figure (side by side with her father, who accompanied his guest to the lodge) swiftly passed across the lawn and vanished amid the trees beyond, Mrs. Campion wound a mother-like arm around her waist and kissed her. Cecilia shivered and turned her face to her friend smiling; but such a smile,—one of those smiles that seem brimful of tears.
“Thank you, dear,” she said meekly; and, gliding away towards the flower-garden, lingered a while by the gate which Kenelm had opened the night before. Then she went with languid steps up the green slopes towards the ruined priory.
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