Entering the Manor, she was conscious of some fatigue and listlessness,--a touch of depression weighed down her naturally bright spirits. She exchanged her home-spun walking dress for a tea- gown, and descended somewhat languidly to the morning-room where tea was served with more ceremoniousness than on the previous day, Primmins having taken command, with the assistance of the footman. Both men-servants stole respectful glances at their mistress, as she sat pensively alone at the open window, looking out on the verdant landscape that spread away from the terrace, in undulations of lawn, foliage and field to the last border of trees that closed in Abbot's Manor grounds from the public highway. Both would have said had they been asked, that she was much too pretty and delicate to be all alone in the great old house, with no companion of her own age to exchange ideas with by speech or glance,--and, with that masculine self-assurance which is common to all the lords of creation, whether they be emperors or household domestics, they would have opined that 'she ought to be married.' In which they would have entirely agreed with Maryllia's 'dragon' Aunt Emily. But Maryllia's own mind was far from being set on such themes as love and marriage. Her meditations were melancholy, and not unmixed with self-reproach. She blamed herself for having stayed away so long from her childhood's home, and her father's grave.
"I might have visited it at least once a year!" she thought with sharp compunction--"I never really forgot,--why did I seem to forget?"
The sun was sinking slowly in a glory of crimson and amber cloud, when, having resolved upon what she was going to do, she entered the picture-gallery. Softly she trod the polished floor,--with keen quick instinct and appreciative eyes, she noted the fine Vandyke portraits,--the exquisite Greuze that shone out, star-like, from a dark corner of the panelled walls,--and walking with measured pace she went straight up to the picture of 'Mary Elia Adelgisa de Vaignecourt'--and gazed at it with friendly and familiar eyes.
"I know YOU quite well!"--she said, addressing the painted beauty-- "I have often dreamed about you since I left home! I always admired you and wanted to be like you. I remember when I must have been about seven or eight years old, I ran in from a game in the garden one summer's afternoon, and I knelt down in front of you and I said: 'Pray God make little Maryllia as pretty as big Mary Elia!' And I think,--I really do think--though of course I'm not half or quarter as pretty, I'm just a little like you! Just a very, very little! For instance my hair is the same colour--almost--and my eyes--no! I'm sure I haven't such beautiful eyes as yours--I wish I had!"