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Read Ebook: Erämaan tytär by Curwood James Oliver Salo Aukusti Translator
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Ebook has 1396 lines and 51191 words, and 28 pages
PORTIA;
BY PASSIONS ROCKED
THE DUCHESS
NEW YORK AND CHICAGO BUTLER BROTHERS
TROW'S PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY, NEW YORK.
PORTIA;
"A child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or, for thy more sweet understanding, a woman."--LOVE'S LABORS LOST.
THE gates are thrown wide open, and the carriage rolls smoothly down the long dark avenue, beneath the waving branches of the tall elms and the copper beeches, through which the dying sun is flinging its parting rays.
The horses, sniffing the air of home, fling up their heads and make still greater haste, until presently, rounding the curve, they draw up before the hall door.
It stands open, and on the high, stone steps that lead to it, a very pretty girl looks down upon the carriage from under her palm, with a face eager and expectant. When she has barely glanced at it, she says, "Ah!" in a tone of deep satisfaction, and running down the steps and over the gravel, turns the handle of the carriage door and looks anxiously at its occupant.
The person she addresses--a girl about two years older than herself, says:
"Yes, I have come," in a tone slow and sweet, almost to languor.
Miss Vibart, stepping out of the brougham, follows her hostess into the house, through the grand old hall, and up the wide, oak staircase, into a room huge and old-fashioned--but delicious and cozy, and comfortable to the last degree.
Having cast one hasty glance round the apartment, Miss Vibart turns to her young hostess--
"You are Dulcinea? isn't it?" she says, questioningly.
Miss Vibart stares, forgetting her usually very charming manners for the moment, and then drops her heavily-fringed lids over her eyes.
"By-the-by," says Dulce, breaking in upon what threatens to be an awkward pause, "how d'ye do? I don't believe I have said that yet." Her whole tone and expression have changed as if by magic; the suggestion of ill-temper is gone; the former vivacity re-asserts itself. She lays her hands upon her visitor's shoulders with a light, caressing gesture, and leans towards her. "I shall give you a little kiss for your welcome, my dear cousin, if I may," she says, very prettily.
"Sit in this chair, and rest a little before thinking of taking off anything else," says Dulce; "I shall pour out your tea."
She goes, with the quick undulating step that belongs to her, to a small, round table, and makes a little fuss over the delicate fat little cups that stand on the tray.
"You take sugar?" she asks, in a moment or two.
"No, thank you," says Portia, slowly; she is looking at her cousin still, whose hair is as nearly red as it can be, without being exactly so; it comes very, very close to it, but it is only the rude who have ever called it so.
Miss Vibart is amused. "What a very charming description," she says, with the low laugh she allows herself; "he sounds like something I have seen somewhere, and he certainly would be a treasure to Byron."
"Lord Byron?" asks Dulce, with lifted brows; "I don't myself think he would show off much as a Conrad, or a Giaour, or a Lara."
"I rather fancy I was thinking of the man who writes plays," says Miss Vibart, mildly. "Is he here now?"
"Who wafted so insane a breath as that?" asks Portia, with a suppressed smile.
"Mark Gore. He puts in a good deal of his time here, too."
"Mark Gore never talks anything but the very utterest nonsense," says Portia with a faint blush. "No one minds him. I shall be quite afraid to go down-stairs to present myself to Dicky Browne after all you have said. Consider his disappointment."
"I shan't," says Dulce, calmly, "and you needn't fear him. He is only Dicky. Well, it is five now, and we dine at seven. I shall send your maid to you, and I shall call back for you in an hour, if you wish, to bring you down stairs with me. But, perhaps--"
"Oh! please do," says Portia, graciously. "I shall be just a little strange at first, shan't I?"
"I shall be ready," says Portia, with determination.
"The first and the simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind is curiosity."--BURKE.
"YES, I am quite ready," says Portia.
The hour has flown, and Dulcinea, standing in the doorway of her cousin's room, gazes on her with undisguised admiration. To Dulcinea, anything lovely, be it man, or beast, or flower, is an intense and everlasting delight, and now Portia enchants her. In very truth so well she might, as a fairer picture than she presents at this moment can hardly be imagined.
She is standing before a large glass, let into the wall on one side of the room from ceiling to floor, and, with a back glass in her hand, is leaning slightly to one side, as though lost in admiration of the soft mass of fair, brown hair that lies coiled low down on her neck in high-art fashion. She is like a soft harmony in black and gold, with her filmy robes clinging closely round her, and the old gold, that is so like tarnished yellow, touching her here and there.
"Ah! Mark was right," says Dulce, with a little sigh of intensest pleasure. "Come down now , and be made known to Uncle Christopher."
It is in the library that Miss Vibart makes herself known. Dulce entering first, with her gay little air, says:
"This is Portia, Uncle Christopher." Thereupon a tall old man, rising from a chair, comes quickly up to them and takes Portia's hand, and, stooping very low, presses his lips to her forehead.
He is a remarkably handsome old man, with light hair, and a rather warm complexion, and choleric, but kindly eyes. Even at the first glance Portia tells herself he would be as harsh a foe as he would be a champion true, and in so far she reads him right. He is hot-tempered, obstinate, at moments perhaps unjust, but at all times kind-hearted, and deserving of tenderest regard.
Now he is holding his new niece's hand, and is gazing down at her with animated eyes, that no age will ever quite dim.
"Very much. But forgive me," says Sir Christopher, "if I say you were not anything like as good-looking then as you are to-day."
"What then?" asked Sir Christopher, giving a sudden pull to his collar, and betraying an increased degree of interest.
"Nothing like so good-looking as you are to-day," retorts she, with a quick smile and a little flicker of her eyelids.
"Ah! we shall be friends," cries Sir Christopher, gaily. "Baby and you and I will ride roughshod over all the others; and we have wanted somebody to help us, haven't we, Baby?" Then he turns more entirely to Dulce; "Eh, a sharp wit, isn't it?" he says.
"Auntie Maud sent her love to you," said Portia.
"She ought to have had you," says Miss Vibart, with soft audacity.
"Eh? eh?" says Sir Christopher, plainly delighted. "Now, what a rogue!" He turns to Dulce, as he always does on every occasion, be it sweet or bitter. "You hear her, Dulce. She flatters me, eh?"
Miss Vibart, like Alice, begins to think it all "curiouser and curiouser;" yet, withal, the house seems full of love.
"She must, indeed," says Dulce, "though I doubt if she will thank us for it by-and-by; when she finds herself with rose-colored cheeks like a dairy-maid, she will be very angry with us all."
"I shall never have red cheeks," says Portia; "and I shall never be angry with you; but I shall surely get strong in this charming air."
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