"Tragedy of the Gorgon's Head! Medusa, Mrs. Grahame," said that lady, laughing softly. "Has my hair turned to snakes, Hilda, or what is there so frightful in my appearance? I heard your voices sounding so merrily I thought the ice was completely broken."

"Oh, I think it is," said Hildegarde. "You came upon him suddenly, that was all."

"Next time," said her mother, "I will appear gradually, like the Cheshire Cat, beginning with the grin."

Hildegarde laughed, and went to pin a red rose on her mother's dress.

Then she said: "I was wrong, Mammina, and you were right, as usual. It is a tiresome way you have, so monotonous! But really he is a very nice boy, and he knows, oh! ever so much about music. He must be quite a wonder." And she told her mother about the violin, and all the rest of it.

Mrs. Grahame agreed with her that it would be delightful to have some musical evenings, and Hildegarde resolved to practise two hours a day regularly.

"But there are so few hours in the day!" she complained. "I thought getting up at seven would give me--oh! ever so much time, and I have none at all. Here is the morning nearly gone, and we have had no reading, not a word." And she looked injured.

"There is an hour before dinner," said Mrs. Grahame, "and the 'Makers of Florence' is lying on my table at this minute. Come up, and I will read while you--need I specify the occupation?"

"You need not," said Hildegarde. "I really did mean to mend it this morning, love, but things happened. I had to sew on boot-b.u.t.tons before breakfast, three of them, and then Janet wanted me to show her about something. But now I will really be industrious."

This was destined to be a day of visits. In the afternoon Mrs. Loftus and her daughter called, driving up in great state, with prancing horses and clinking harness. Hildegarde, who was in her own room, meditated a plunge down her private staircase and an escape by way of the back door, but decided that it would be base to desert her mother; so she smoothed her waving hair, inspected her gown to make sure that it was spotless, and came down into the parlour.

Mrs. Loftus was a very large lady, with a very red face, who talked volubly about "our place," "our horses," "our hot-houses," etc., etc.

Miss Loftus, whose name was Leonie, was small and rather pretty, though she did not look altogether amiable. She was inclined to patronise Hildegarde, but that young person did not take kindly to patronage, and was a little stately, though very polite, in her manner.

"Yes, it is pretty about here," said Miss Loftus, "though one tires of it very quickly. We vegetate here for three months every summer; it's papa's" (she p.r.o.nounced it "puppa") "whim, you see. How long a season do you make?"

"None at all," said Hildegarde quietly. "We are going to live here."

Miss Loftus raised her eyebrows. "Oh! you can hardly do that, I should think!" she said with a superior smile. "A few months will probably change your views entirely. There is no life here, absolutely none."

"Indeed!" said Hildegarde. "I thought it was a very prosperous neighbourhood. All the farms look thrifty and well cared for; the crops are alive, at least."

"Oh, farmers and crops!" said Miss Loftus. "Very likely. I meant social life."

"I don't like social life," said Hildegarde.

This was not strictly true, but she could not help saying it, as she told her mother afterward.

Miss Loftus pa.s.sed over the remark with another smile, which made our heroine want to pinch her, and added, "You must consider us your only neighbours, as indeed we really are."

"Yes, indeed!" said Mrs. Loftus, who was now rising ponderously to depart. "We shall hope to see you often at The Poplars, Mrs. Grahame.

There is not another house within five miles where one can visit. Of course I don't include that old bear, Colonel Ferrers, who never speaks a civil word to any one."

Hildegarde flushed and looked at her mother, but Mrs. Grahame said very quietly, "I have known Colonel Ferrers for many years. He was a friend of my husband's."

"Oh, I beg your pardon!" said Mrs. Loftus, looking scared. "I had no idea--I never heard of _any one_ knowing Colonel Ferrers. Come, Leonie, we must be going."

They departed, first engaging Hildegarde, rather against her will, to lunch with them the following Friday; and the grand equipage rolled clinking and jingling away.

"We seem to have fallen upon a Montague and Capulet neighbourhood," said Mrs. Grahame, smiling, as she turned to go upstairs.

"Yes, indeed!" said Hildegarde. "Shall we be Tybalts or Mercutios?"

"Neither, I hope," said her mother, "as both were run through the body.

Of course, however, there is no question as to which neighbour we shall find most congenial. And now, child, get your hat, and let us take a good walk, to drive the cobwebs out of our brains."

"Have with you!" said Hildegarde, running lightly up the stairs; "only, darling, _don't_ be so--so--incongruous as to call Mrs. Loftus a cobweb!"

CHAPTER VII.

MISS AGATHA'S CABINET.

"MAMMINA! I have found them! I have found them!" cried Hildegarde, rushing like a whirlwind into her mother's room, and waving something over her head.

"What have you found, darling?" asked Mrs. Grahame, looking up from her writing. "Not your wits, for example? I should be so glad!"

"One may not shake one's mother," said Hildegarde, "but beware, lest you 'rouse an Indian's indomitable nature.' I have found the keys of Miss Agatha's cabinet."

"Really!" cried Mrs. Grahame, laying down her pen. "Are you sure? where were they?"

"In that old secretary in Uncle Aytoun's room," said Hildegarde. "You know you said I might rummage in it some day, and this rainy afternoon seemed to be the very time. They were in a little drawer, all by themselves; and see, they are marked, 'Keys of the cabinet in my sister Agatha's room, containing miniatures, etc.'"

"This is indeed a discovery!" said Mrs. Grahame, rising. "We will examine the cabinet together, dear; as you say, it is just the day for it."

Hildegarde led the way, dancing with excitement and pleasure; her mother followed more slowly. There might be sadness, she thought, as well as pleasure, in looking over the relics of a family which had died out, leaving none of the name, so far as she knew, in this country at least.

Miss Agatha's room did not look very cheerful in the grey light of a wet day. The prevailing tint of walls and ceiling was a greyish yellow; the faded curtains were held back by faded ribbons; the furniture was angular and high-shouldered. On the wall was a coloured print of "London in 1802," from which the metropolis would seem to have been a singular place. The only interesting feature in the room was the cabinet which they had come to explore, and this was really a beautiful piece of furniture. It stood seven feet high at least, and was apparently of solid ebony, inlaid with yellow ivory in curious spiral patterns. In the centre was a small door, almost entirely covered with the ivory tracery; above, below, and around were drawers, large and small, deep and shallow, a very wilderness of drawers. All had silver keyholes of curious pattern, and all were fast locked, a fact which had seriously interfered with Hildegarde's peace of mind ever since they came to the house. Now, however, that she actually stood before it with the "Open sesame," this bunch of quaint silver keys in her hand, she shrank back, and felt shy and afraid.

"You must open it, mamma," she said. "I dare not."

Mrs. Grahame fitted a key to one of the larger drawers, and opened it. A faint perfume floated out, old roses and lavender, laid away one knows not how many years. Under folds of silver paper lay some damask towels, fine and thick and smooth, but yellow with age. They were tied with a lilac ribbon, and on the ribbon was pinned a piece of paper, covered with writing in a fine, cramped hand.

"Lift them out carefully, dear," said Mrs. Grahame, "and read the label."

Hildegarde complied, and read aloud: "These towels were spun and woven by my grandmother Grahame in Scotland, before she came to this country.

Her maiden name was Annot McIntosh."

"What beautiful linen!" said Mrs. Grahame, smoothing the glossy folds with the hand of a housewife. "I always wished I had learned to spin and weave. Linen that one buys has no feeling in it. Lay it back reverently, degenerate daughter of the nineteenth century, and your degenerate mother will open another drawer."

The next drawer contained several sets of baby-clothes, at sight of which Hildegarde opened her eyes very wide indeed. Her mother was an exquisite needle-woman, so was her cousin Wealthy Bond, and she herself had no need to be ashamed of the "fine seam" she could sew; but never had she seen such needlework as this: tiny caps, wrought so thick with flower and leaf that no spot of the plain linen could be seen; robes of finest lawn, with wonderful embroidered fronts; shawls of silk flannel, with deep borders of heavy "laid work." One robe was so beautiful that both Hildegarde and her mother cried over it, and took it up to examine it more carefully. On the breast was pinned a piece of paper, with an inscription in the same delicate hand: "Hester's christening-robe. We think it was in consequence of this fine work that our dear mother lost her eyesight."

"I should think it highly probable," said Mrs. Grahame, laying the exquisite monument of folly back in the drawer. "I did not know that old Madam Aytoun was blind. What is written on that tiny cap, in the corner there? It must be a doll's cap; no baby could be so small."

Hildegarde read the inscription: "Worn by our uncle Hesketh, who weighed two pounds at birth. He grew to be six feet and six inches in height, and weighed three hundred pounds."

"What a wonderful person Miss Agatha must have been!" said Hildegarde.

"Who else would think of all these pleasant bits of information? And now for the next drawer!"

She opened it, and gave a little shriek of delight. Here truly were beautiful things, such as neither she nor her mother had ever seen before: three short ap.r.o.ns of white silk, trimmed with deep gold lace, and covered with silk-embroidered flowers of richest hues, one with tulips, another with roses, a third with carnations. Folds of tissue paper separated them from each other, and the legend told that they had been worn by "our great-grandmother Ponsonby, when she was Maid of Honour to Queen Caroline. She was an Englishwoman."