"It is useless to remind me of a promise, my beloved aunt, which I have so much interest in remembering," she said. "I hope for even more than you have perhaps dared to wish; if my father does not return with me in the spring, it shall not be for want of urging on my part."
"Our good Wyllys will lend her aid," returned the aunt, smiling and bowing to the third female, with that mixture of suavity and form which was peculiar to the stately manners of the time, and which was rarely neglected, when a superior addressed an inferior. "She is entitled to command some interest with General Grayson, from her fidelity and services."
"She is entitled to everything that love and heart can give!" exclaimed the niece, with a haste and earnestness that proclaimed how willingly she would temper the formal politeness of the other by the warmth of her own affectionate manner; "my father will scarcely refuse her any thing."
"And have we the assurance of Miss Wyllys that she will be in our interests?" demanded the aunt, without permitting her own sense of propriety to be overcome by the stronger feelings of her niece; "with so powerful an ally, our league will be invincible."
"I am so entirely of opinion, that the salubrious air of this healthful island is of great importance to my young charge, Madam, that, were all other considerations wanting, the little I can do to aid your wishes shall be sure to be done."
Wyllys spoke with dignity, and perhaps with some portion of that reserve which distinguished all the communications between the wealthy and high-born aunt and the salaried and dependent governess of her brother's heiress. Still her manner was gentle, and the voice, like that of her pupil, soft and strikingly feminine.
"We may then consider the victory as achieved, as my late husband the Rear-Admiral was accustomed to say. Admiral de Lacey, my dear Mrs. Wyllys, adopted it in early life as a maxim, by which all his future conduct was governed, and by adhering to which he acquired no small share of his professional reputation, that, in order to be successful, it was only necessary to be determined one would be so;--a noble and inspiriting rule, and one that could not fail to lead to those signal results which, as we all know them, I need not mention."
Wyllys bowed her head, in acknowledgment of the truth of the opinion, and in testimony of the renown of the deceased Admiral; but did not think it necessary to make any reply. Instead of allowing the subject to occupy her mind any longer, she turned to her young pupil, and observed, speaking in a voice and with a manner from which every appearance of restraint was banished,--
"Gertrude, my love, you will have pleasure in returning to this charming island, and to these cheering sea breezes."
"And to my aunt!" exclaimed Gertrude. "I wish my father could be persuaded to dispose of his estates in Carolina, and come northward, to reside the whole year."
"It is not quite as easy for an affluent proprietor to remove as you may imagine, my child," returned Mrs. de Lacey. "Much as I wish that some such plan could be adopted, I never press my brother on the subject. Besides, I am not certain, that, if we were ever to make another change in the family, it would not be to return home altogether. It is now more than a century, Mrs. Wyllys, since the Graysons came into the colonies, in a moment of dissatisfaction with the government in England. My great-grandfather sir Everard, was displeased with his second son, and the dissension led my grandfather to the province of Carolina. But, as the breach has long since been healed, I often think my brother and myself may yet return to the halls of our ancestors. Much will, however, depend on the manner in which we dispose of our treasure on this side of the Atlantic."
As the really well-meaning, though, perhaps, a little too much self-satisfied lady concluded her remark, she glanced her eye at the perfectly unconscious subject of the close of her speech. Gertrude had, as usual, when her aunt chose to favour her governess with any of her family reminiscences, turned her head aside, and was now offering her cheek, burning with health, and perhaps a little with shame, to the cooling influence of the evening breeze. The instant the voice of Mrs. de Lacey had ceased, she turned hastily to her companions; and, pointing to a noble-looking ship, whose masts, as it lay in the inner harbour, were seen rising above the roofs of the town, she exclaimed, as if glad to change the subject in any manner,--
"And yonder gloomy prison is to be our home, dear Mrs. Wyllys, for the next month!"
"I hope your dislike to the sea has magnified the time," mildly returned her governess; "the passage between this place and Carolina has been often made in a shorter period."
"That it has been so done, I can testify," resumed the Admiral's widow, adhering a little pertinaciously to a train of thoughts, which, once thoroughly awakened in her bosom, was not easily diverted into another channel, "since my late estimable and (I feel certain all who hear me will acquiesce when I add) gallant husband once conducted a squadron of his Royal Master, from one extremity of his Majesty's American dominions to the other, in a time less than that named by my niece: It may have made some difference in his speed that he was in pursuit of the enemies of his King and country, but still the fact proves that the voyage can be made within the month."
"There is that dreadful Henlopen, with its sandy shoals and shipwrecks on one hand, and that stream they call the Gulf on the other!" exclaimed Gertrude, with a shudder, and a burst of natural female terror, which makes timidity sometimes attractive, when exhibited in the person of youth and beauty. "If it were not for Henlopen, and its gales, and its shoals, and its gulfs, I could think only of the pleasure of meeting my father."
Mrs. Wyllys, who never encouraged her pupil in those, natural weaknesses, however pretty and be coming they might appear to other eyes, turned with a steady mien to the young lady, as she remarked, with a brevity and decision that were intended to put the question of fear at rest for ever,--
"If all the dangers you appear to apprehend existed in reality, the passage would not be made daily or even hourly, in safety. You have often, Madam, come from the Carolinas by sea, in company with Admiral de Lacey?"
"Never," the widow promptly and a little drily remarked. "The water has not agreed with my constitution, and I have never neglected to journey by land. But then you know, Wyllys, as the consort and relict of a flag-officer, it was not seemly that I should be ignorant of naval science. I believe there are few ladies in the British empire who are more familiar with ships, either singly or in squadron particularly the latter, than myself. This in formation I have naturally acquired, as the companion of an officer, whose fortune it was to lead fleets. I presume these are matters of which you are profoundly ignorant."
The calm, dignified countenance of Wyllys, on which it would seem as if long cherished and painful recollections had left a settled, but mild expression of sorrow, that rather tempered than destroyed the traces of character which were still remarkable in her firm collected eye, became clouded, for a moment, with a deeper shade of melancholy. After hesitating, as if willing to change the subject, she replied,--
"I have not been altogether a stranger to the sea. It has been my lot to have made many long, and some perilous voyages."
"As a mere passenger. But we wives of sailors only, among our sex, can lay claim to any real knowledge of the noble profession! What natural object is there, or can there be," exclaimed the nautical dowager, in a burst of professional enthusiasm, "finer than a stately ship breasting the billows, as I have heard the Admiral say a thousand times, its taffrail ploughing the main, and its cut-water gliding after, like a sinuous serpent pursuing its shining wake, as a living creature choosing its path on the land, and leaving the bone under its fore-foot, a beacon for those that follow? I know not, my dear Wyllys, if I make myself intelligible to you, but, to my instructed eye, this charming description conveys a picture of all that is grand and beautiful!"
The latent smile, on the countenance of the governess might have betrayed that she was imagining the deceased Admiral had not been altogether devoid of the waggery of his vocation, had not a slight noise, which sounded like the rustling of the wind, but which in truth was suppressed laughter, proceeded from the upper room of the tower. The words, "It is lovely!" were still on the lips of the youthful Gertrude, who saw all the beauty of the picture her aunt had essayed to describe, without descending to the humble employment of verbal