Part 82 (2/2)

'Shene, the painter?'

'Yes. He had been very much struck with Guy's face: it was exactly what he wanted for a picture he was about, and he wished of all things just to be allowed to make a sketch.'

'Did you submit?'

'Yes' said Guy; 'and we were rewarded. I never saw a more agreeable person, or one who gave so entirely the impression of genius. The next day he took us through the gallery, and showed us all that was worth admiring.'

'And in what character is he to make you appear?'

'That is the strange part of it,' said Amabel. 'Don't you remember how Guy once puzzled us by choosing Sir Galahad for his favourite hero? It is that very Sir Galahad, when he kneels to adore the Saint Greal.'

'Mr. Shene said he had long been dreaming over it, and at last, as he saw Guy's face looking upwards, it struck him that it was just what he wanted: it would be worth anything to him to catch the expression.'

'I wonder what I was looking like!' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Guy.

'Did he take you as yourself, or as Sir Galahad?'

'As myself, happily.'

'How did he succeed?'

'Amy likes it; but decidedly I should never have known myself.'

'Ah,' said his wife--

'Could some fay the giftie gie us, To see ourselves as others see us.'

'As far as the sun-burnt visage is concerned, the gla.s.s does that every morning.'

'Yes, but you don't look at yourself exactly as you do at a painted window,' said Amy, in her demure way.

'I cannot think how you found time for sitting,' said Philip.

'O, it is quite a little thing, a mere sketch, done in two evenings and half an hour in the morning. He promises it to me when he has done with Sir Galahad,' said Amy.

'Two--three evenings. You must have been a long time at Munich.'

'A fortnight,' said Guy, 'there is a great deal to see there.'

Philip did not quite understand this, nor did he think it very satisfactory that they should thus have lingered in a gay town, but he meant to make the best of them to-day, and returned to his usual fas.h.i.+on of patronizing and laying down the law. They were so used to this that they did not care about it; indeed, they had reckoned on it as the most amiable conduct to be expected on his part.

The day was chiefly spent in an excursion on the lake, landing at the most beautiful spots, walking a little way and admiring, or while in the boat, smoothly moving over the deep blue waters, gaining lovely views of the banks, and talking over the book with which their acquaintance had begun, ”I Promessi Sposi”. Never did tourists spend a more serene and pleasant day.

On comparing notes as to their plans, it appeared that each party had about a week or ten days to spare; the captain before he must embark for Corfu, and Sir Guy and Lady Morville before the time they had fixed for returning home. Guy proposed to go together somewhere, spare the post-office further blunders, and get the Signor Capitano to be their interpreter. Philip thought it would be an excellent thing for his young cousins for him to take charge of them, and show them how people ought to travel; so out came his little pocket map, marked with his route, before he left Ireland, whereas they seemed to have no fixed object, but to be always going 'somewhere.' It appeared that they had thought of Venice, but were easily diverted from it by his design of coasting the eastern bank of the Lago di Como, and so across the Stelvio into the Tyrol, all together as far as Botzen, whence Philip would turn southward by the mountain paths, while they would proceed to Innsbruck on their return home.

Amabel was especially pleased to stay a little longer on the banks of the lake, and to trace out more of Lucia's haunts; and if she secretly thought it would have been pleasanter without a third person, she was gratified to see how much Guy's manner had softened Philip's injustice and distrust, making everything so smooth and satisfactory, that at the end of the day, she told her husband that she thought his experiment had not failed.

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