"Forgive me, Uncle Jolyon; it was here that I first knew."

"Yes, yes; there it is for you whenever you like. You're looking a

little Londony; you're giving too many lessons."

That she should have to give lessons worried him. Lessons to a parcel of

young girls thumping out scales with their thick fingers.

"Where do you go to give them?" he asked.

"They're mostly Jewish families, luckily."

Old Jolyon stared; to all Forsytes Jews seem strange and doubtful.

"They love music, and they're very kind."

"They had better be, by George!" He took her arm--his side always hurt

him a little going uphill--and said:

"Did you ever see anything like those buttercups? They came like that in

a night."

Her eyes seemed really to fly over the field, like bees after the

flowers and the honey. "I wanted you to see them--wouldn't let them

turn the cows in yet." Then, remembering that she had come to talk about

Bosinney, he pointed to the clock-tower over the stables:

"I expect he wouldn't have let me put that there--had no notion of time,

if I remember."

But, pressing his arm to her, she talked of flowers instead, and he knew

it was done that he might not feel she came because of her dead lover.

"The best flower I can show you," he said, with a sort of triumph, "is

my little sweet. She'll be back from Church directly. There's something

about her which reminds me a little of you," and it did not seem to him

peculiar that he had put it thus, instead of saying: "There's something

about you which reminds me a little of her." Ah! And here she was!

Holly, followed closely by her elderly French governess, whose digestion

had been ruined twenty-two years ago in the siege of Strasbourg, came

rushing towards them from under the oak tree. She stopped about a dozen

yards away, to pat Balthasar and pretend that this was all she had in

her mind. Old Jolyon, who knew better, said:

"Well, my darling, here's the lady in grey I promised you."

Holly raised herself and looked up. He watched the two of them with a

twinkle, Irene smiling, Holly beginning with grave inquiry, passing

into a shy smile too, and then to something deeper. She had a sense of

beauty, that child--knew what was what! He enjoyed the sight of the kiss

between them.

"Mrs. Heron, Mam'zelle Beauce. Well, Mam'zelle--good sermon?"

For, now that he had not much more time before him, the only part of

the service connected with this world absorbed what interest in church

remained to him. Mam'zelle Beauce stretched out a spidery hand clad in

a black kid glove--she had been in the best families--and the rather sad

eyes of her lean yellowish face seemed to ask: "Are you well-brrred?"

Whenever Holly or Jolly did anything unpleasing to her--a not uncommon

occurrence--she would say to them: "The little Tayleurs never did

that--they were such well-brrred little children." Jolly hated the

little Tayleurs; Holly wondered dreadfully how it was she fell so short

of them. 'A thin rum little soul,' old Jolyon thought her--Mam'zelle

Beauce.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024