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She wore a mantle of swan's down closely wrapped round her, for she had complained ceaselessly of the chilly summer. "Mr. Raleigh," she said, "I am poorer than you are, now. I am no longer an heiress." At this moment, the door opened again and Mrs. Laudersdale entered.
Pushing off the boat and springing in, once more the water curled beneath the parting prow, and she shot with her flashing sail and hissing wake heedlessly, like a phantom, past another boat that was making more slowly in to shore. "This way, Helen," murmurs a subdued voice. "There are some steps, Mr. Laudersdale. Here we are; but it's dark as Erebus.
Helen Heath was drowsy and half-nodding in the bow, nodding with the more ease that it was still so dark and that Mr. Raleigh's back was toward her. Mrs. Laudersdale reclined in the stern. Mr. Raleigh once in a while sent them far along with a strong stroke, then only an occasional plash broke the charm of perfect stillness.
And making quick adieux, while Mrs. Laudersdale jested about tempting the raging waters, and the dinner-bell was ringing, and Helen singing, "Come o'er the stream, Charlie, and dine wi' McLean," he opened the door, suffered a patch of blue sky to be seen, and the segment of an afternoon rainbow, shut it, and was gone. Early again the next morning, Mr.
I arrive on your invitation to pass the day" "But I didn't expect you before the sun." "To pass the day, and find you absent and the breakfast-table not cleared away." "My dear Roger, we have not quite taken our habits yet. As soon as the country-air shall have wakened and made over Helen and Mrs. Laudersdale, you will find us ready for company at daybreak."
If, finally, on one of the last August-nights, we had passed, Asmodeus-like, over the roofs, looking down, we should have seen three things. First, that Mrs. Laudersdale slept like any innocent dreamer, and, wrapped with white moonlight, in her long and flowing outline, in her imperceptible breath, resembling some perfect statue that we fancy to be instinct with suspended life. Next, that Mr.
Laudersdale, translating her, as it were, into another planet, where familiar faces in pompous entablature look out upon her from a whirl of light and color, and familiar voices utter stately sentences in some honeyed unknown tongue.
Roger Raleigh's distant lantern, as, stretched at ease, he turned the slow leaves of a Froissart, and suffered the Arrow to drift as it would across the night. The next morning Mrs. Laudersdale descended, as usual, to the breakfast-table, at an hour when all the rest had concluded their repast. Miss Helen Heath alone remained, trifling with the tea-cups, and singing little exercises.
It was curious to see, that, while Mrs. Laudersdale lifted each blossom and let the stem lie across her hand, she suffered it to fall into the place designated for it by Marguerite's fingers, that sparkled in the mosaic till double wreaths of gold-threaded purple rose from the bed of vivid moss and melted into a fringe of the starry spires of winter-green.
That Mrs. Laudersdale was the technical magnificent woman, I need not reiterate. I wish I knew some name gorgeous enough in sound and association for that given her at christening; but I don't. It is my opinion that she was born Mrs. Laudersdale, that her coral-and-bell was marked Mrs. Laudersdale, and that her name stands golden-lettered on the recording angel's leaf simply as Mrs. Laudersdale.
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