‘Ye—es,’ I said hesitatingly, though I was palpitating with joy, ‘I fancy we should like gooseberry-tart’ (here a bright idea entered my mind); ‘and perhaps, in case my aunt doesn’t care for the gooseberry-tart, you might bring a lemon-squash, please.’
Now, I had never met a lemon-squash personally, but I had often heard of it, and wished to show my familiarity with British culinary art.
‘It would ’ardly be a substitute for gooseberry-tart, miss; but shall I bring one lemon-squash, miss?’
‘Oh, as to that, it doesn’t matter,’ I said haughtily; ‘bring a sufficient number for two persons.’
Aunt Celia came home in the highest feather. She had twice been mistaken for an Englishwoman. She said she thought that lemon-squash was a drink; I thought, of course, it was a pie; but we shall find out at dinner, for, as I said, I ordered a sufficient number for two persons, and the head-waiter is not a personage who will let Transatlantic ignorance remain uninstructed.
At four o’clock we attended evensong at the cathedral. I shall not say what I felt when the white-surpliced boy choir entered, winding down those vaulted aisles, or when I heard for the first time that intoned service, with all its ‘witchcraft of harmonic sound.’ I sat quite by myself in a high carved oak seat, and the hour was passed in a trance of serene delight. I do not have many opinions, it is true, but papa says I am always strong on sentiments; nevertheless, I shall not attempt to tell even what I feel in these new and beautiful experiences, for it has been better told a thousand times.
There were a great many people at service, and a large number of Americans among them, I should think, though we saw no familiar faces. There was one particularly nice young man, who looked like a Bostonian. He sat opposite me. He didn’t stare—he was too well bred, but when I looked the other way he looked at me. Of course, I could feel his eyes; anybody can—at least, any girl can; but I attended to every word of the service, and was as good as an angel. When the procession had filed out, and the last strain of the great organ had rumbled into silence, we went on a tour through the cathedral, a heterogeneous band, headed by a conscientious old verger, who did his best to enlighten us, and succeeded in virtually spoiling my pleasure.
After we had finished (think of ‘finishing’ a cathedral in an hour or two!), Aunt Celia and I, with one or two others, wandered through the beautiful close, looking at the exterior from every possible point, and coming at last to a certain ruined arch which is very famous. It did not strike me as being remarkable. I could make any number of them with a pattern without the least effort. But, at any rate, when told by the verger to gaze upon the beauties of this wonderful relic and tremble, we were obliged to gaze also upon the beauties of the aforesaid nice young man, who was sketching it.
As we turned to go away, Aunt Celia dropped her bag. It is one of those detestable, all-absorbing, all-devouring, thoroughly respectable, but never proud, Boston bags, made of black cloth with leather trimmings, ‘C. Van T.’ embroidered on the side, and the top drawn up with stout cords which pass over the Boston wrist or arm. As for me, I loathe them, and would not for worlds be seen carrying one, though I do slip a great many necessaries into Aunt Celia’s.
I hastened to pick up the horrid thing, for fear the nice young man would feel obliged to do it for me; but, in my indecorous haste, I caught hold of the wrong end, and emptied the entire contents on the stone flagging. Aunt Celia didn’t notice; she had turned with the verger, lest she should miss a single word of his inspired testimony. So we scrambled up the articles together, the nice young man and I; and oh, I hope I may never look upon his face again.
There were prayer-books and guide-books, a Bath bun, a bottle of soda-mint tablets, a church calendar, a bit of gray frizz that Aunt Celia pins into her cap when she is travelling in damp weather, a spectacle-case, a brandy-flask, and a bon-bon-box, which broke and scattered cloves and peppermint lozenges. (I hope he guessed Aunt Celia is a dyspeptic, and not intemperate!) All this was hopelessly vulgar, but I wouldn’t have minded anything if there had not been a Duchess novel. Of course he thought that it belonged to me. He couldn’t have known Aunt Celia was carrying it for that accidental Mrs. Benedict, with whom she went to St. Cross Hospital.
After scooping the cloves out of the cracks in the stone flagging—and, of course, he needn’t have done this, unless he had an abnormal sense of humour—he handed me the tattered, disreputable-looking copy of ‘A Modern Circe,’ with a bow that wouldn’t have disgraced a Chesterfield, and then went back to his easel, while I fled after Aunt Celia and her verger.
Memoranda: The Winchester Cathedral has the longest nave. The inside is more superb than the outside. Izaak Walton and Jane Austen are buried here.
As sure as my name is Jack Copley, I saw the prettiest girl in the world to-day—an American, too, or I am greatly mistaken. It was in the cathedral, where I have been sketching for several days. I was sitting at the end of a bench, at afternoon service, when two ladies entered by the side-door. The ancient maiden, evidently the head of the family, settled herself devoutly, and the young one stole off by herself to one of the old carved seats back of the choir. She was worse than pretty! I made a memorandum of her during service, as she sat under the dark carved-oak canopy, with this Latin inscription over her head:
There ought to be a law against a woman’s making a picture of herself, unless she is willing to allow an artist to ‘fix her’ properly in his gallery of types.
A black-and-white sketch doesn’t give any definite idea of this charmer’s charms, but sometime I’ll fill it in—hair, sweet little hat, gown, and eyes, all in golden brown, a cape of tawny sable slipping off her arm, a knot of yellow primroses in her girdle, carved-oak background, and the afternoon sun coming through a stained-glass window. Great Jove! She had a most curious effect on me, that girl! I can’t explain it—very curious, altogether new, and rather pleasant. When one of the choir-boys sang ‘Oh for the wings of a dove!’ a tear rolled out of one of her lovely eyes and down her smooth brown cheek. I would have given a large portion of my modest monthly income for the felicity of wiping away that teardrop with one of my new handkerchiefs, marked with a tremendous ‘C’ by my pretty sister.
An hour or two later they appeared again—the dragon, who answers to the name of ‘Aunt Celia,’ and the ‘nut-brown mayde,’ who comes when she is called ‘Katharine.’ I was sketching a ruined arch. The dragon dropped her unmistakably Boston bag. I expected to see encyclopædias and Russian tracts fall from it, but was disappointed. The ‘nut-brown mayde’ (who has been trained in the way she should go) hastened to pick up the bag for fear that I, a stranger, should serve her by doing it. She was punished by turning it inside out, and I was rewarded by helping her gather together the articles, which were many and ill-assorted. My little romance received the first blow when I found that she reads the Duchess novels. I think, however, she has the grace to be ashamed of it, for she blushed scarlet when I handed her ‘A Modern Circe.’ I could have told her that such a blush on such a cheek would almost atone for not being able to read at all, but I refrained. It is vexatious all the same, for, though one doesn’t expect to find perfection here below, the ‘nut-brown mayde,’ externally considered, comes perilously near it. After she had gone I discovered a slip of paper which had blown under some stones. It proved to be an itinerary. I didn’t return it. I thought they must know which way they were going; and as this was precisely what I wanted to know, I kept it for my own use. She is doing the cathedral towns. I am doing the cathedral towns. Happy thought! Why shouldn’t we do them together—we and Aunt Celia? A fellow whose mother and sister are in America must have some feminine society!
I had only ten