United States or Mauritius ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"The Ventmere Blanchemains," she pursued pensively. "Lord Blanchemain of Ventmere is your titled head?" "Exactly," said he. "I knew the late Lord Blanchemain I knew him fairly well," she mentioned, always with a certain pensiveness. "Oh ?" said he, politely interested. "Yes," said she. "But I've never met his successor. The two were not, I believe, on speaking terms.
Lady Blanchemain addressed him in the language of Pistoja. Might one, she inquired, with her air of high affability, in her distinguished old voice, might one visit the castle? a question purely of convention, for she had not come hither without an assurance from her guide-book.
They were in a smaller room than any they had previously traversed, an octagonal room, which a single lofty window filled with sunshine. "Oh, thank you," said Lady Blanchemain, and seated herself on the circular divan in the centre of the polished terrazza floor.
"I'm an adorer of the sex." "Well, then?" questioned she, at a loss. "How can you 'prayerfully' wish to remain a bachelor? Besides, aren't you heir to a peerage? What of the succession?" "That's just the point," he perversely argued. "And you know there are plenty of cousins." "Just the point! just the point!" fretted Lady Blanchemain. "What's just the point?
"I am the Prince's sister," said Maria Dolores. And, as if an explanation of her presence was in order, she added, "I am here visiting my old nurse and governess, to whom my brother has given a pavilion of the Castle for her home." Lady Blanchemain fanned herself. "A miller's daughter!" she thought, with a silent laugh at John's expense and her own.
Annunziata cried out suddenly, with excitement, waving the hand that held her narcissus. "There is my friend Prospero now, coming in the gig." Down the avenue, sure enough, a gig was coming, a sufficiently shabby, ancient gig, drawn, however, at a very decent pace by a very decent-looking horse, and driven by John Blanchemain. "Ciao, Prospero!" called Annunziata, as he passed.
"I suppose, with all the rest, he's rich?" asked Lady Blanchemain. "Immensely," assented John. "Speaking of Fortune and her favours, she's withheld none from him." "Then he's good-looking, too?" "He looks like a Man," said John. "Hum!" said Lady Blanchemain, moving. "If I had received a wire from a creature of such proportions, I've a feeling I'd answer it."
He made, at any rate, a great virtue of having discovered it and of having retraced his steps. The letter was written in black, angular, uncompromising characters, that looked rather like sabre-thrusts and bayonets. It read: "DEAR JACK: I have received the enclosure from Linda Lady Blanchemain. She is an exceedingly impertinent and meddlesome old woman. But she is right about the allowance.
"A miller's daughter!" said John. "Would you have me marry the daughter of a miller?" "You said yourself yesterday " the lady reminded him. "Ah, yes," said he. "But night brings counsel." "If she's well educated," said Lady Blanchemain, "if she's well-bred, what does it matter about her father?
"Rain before seven, clear before eleven," is as true, or as untrue, in Lombardy as it is in other parts of the world. "By Jove," he muttered, "if I wasn't within an ace of clean forgetting!" The sight of the lake had fortunately put him in mind that he was engaged to-day to lunch with Lady Blanchemain at Roccadoro.
Word Of The Day