第57章 CHAPTER XII.(7)

Ever since that night,she had had to rouse herself on awakening in the morning into a full comprehension of the great cause she had for much fear and heavy grief.Now,when she wakened in her little room,fourth piano,No.36,Babuino,she saw the strange,pretty things around her,and her mind went off into pleasant wonder and conjecture,happy recollections of the day before,and pleasant anticipations of the day to come.Latent in Ellinor was her father's artistic temperament;everything new and strange was a picture and a delight;the merest group in the street,a Roman facchino,with his cloak draped over his shoulder,a girl going to market or carrying her pitcher back from the fountain,everything and every person that presented it or himself to her senses,gave them a delicious shock,as if it were something strangely familiar from Pinelli,but unseen by her mortal eyes before.She forgot her despondency,her ill-health disappeared as if by magic;the Misses Forbes,who had taken the pensive,drooping invalid as a companion out of kindness of heart,found themselves amply rewarded by the sight of her amended health,and her keen enjoyment of everything,and the half-quaint,half naive expressions of her pleasure.

So March came round;Lent was late that year.The great nosegays of violets and camellias were for sale at the corner of the Condotti,and the revellers had no difficulty in procuring much rarer flowers for the belles of the Corso.The embassies had their balconies;the attaches of the Russian Embassy threw their light and lovely presents at every pretty girl,or suspicion of a pretty girl,who passed slowly in her carriage,covered over with her white domino,and holding her wire mask as a protection to her face from the showers of lime confetti,which otherwise would have been enough to blind her;Mrs.Forbes had her own hired balcony,as became a wealthy and respectable Englishwoman.The girls had a great basket full of bouquets with which to pelt their friends in the crowd below;a store of moccoletti lay piled on the table behind,for it was the last day of Carnival,and as soon as dusk came on the tapers were to be lighted,to be as quickly extinguished by every means in everyone's power.The crowd below was at its wildest pitch;the rows of stately contadini alone sitting immovable as their possible ancestors,the senators who received Brennus and his Gauls.Masks and white dominoes,foreign gentlemen,and the riffraff of the city,slow-driving carriages,showers of flowers,most of them faded by this time,everyone shouting and struggling at that wild pitch of excitement which may so soon turn into fury.The Forbes girls had given place at the window to their mother and Ellinor,who were gazing half amused,half terrified,at the mad parti-coloured movement below;when a familiar face looked up,smiling a recognition;and "How shall I get to you?"was asked in English,by the well-known voice of Canon Livingstone.They saw him disappear under the balcony on which they were standing,but it was some time before he made his appearance in their room.And when he did,he was almost overpowered with greetings;so glad were they to see an East Chester face.

"When did you come?Where are you?What a pity you did not come sooner!It is so long since we have heard anything;do tell us everything!It is three weeks since we have had any letters;those tiresome boats have been so irregular because of the weather.""How was everybody--Miss Monro in particular?"Ellinor asks.

He,quietly smiling,replied to their questions by slow degrees.He had only arrived the night before,and had been hunting for them all day;but no one could give him any distinct intelligence as to their whereabouts in all the noise and confusion of the place,especially as they had their only English servant with them,and the canon was not strong in his Italian.He was not sorry he had missed all but this last day of carnival,for he was half blinded and wholly deafened,as it was.He was at the "Angleterre;"he had left East Chester about a week ago;he had letters for all of them,but had not dared to bring them through the crowd for fear of having his pocket picked.Miss Monro was very well,but very uneasy at not having heard from Ellinor for so long;the irregularity of the boats must be telling both ways,for their English friends were full of wonder at not hearing from Rome.And then followed some well-deserved abuse of the Roman post,and some suspicion of the carelessness with which Italian servants posted English letters.All these answers were satisfactory enough,yet Mrs.Forbes thought she saw a latent uneasiness in Canon Livingstone's manner,and fancied once or twice that he hesitated in replying to Ellinor's questions.But there was no being quite sure in the increasing darkness,which prevented countenances from being seen;nor in the constant interruptions and screams which were going on in the small crowded room,as wafting handkerchiefs,puffs of wind,or veritable extinguishers,fastened to long sticks,and coming from nobody knew where,put out taper after taper as fast as they were lighted.

"You will come home with us,"said Mrs.Forbes."I can only offer you cold meat with tea;our cook is gone out,this being a universal festa;but we cannot part with an old friend for any scruples as to the commissariat.""Thank you.I should have invited myself if you had not been good enough to ask me."When they had all arrived at their apartment in the Babuino (Canon Livingstone had gone round to fetch the letters with which he was entrusted),Mrs.Forbes was confirmed in her supposition that he had something particular and not very pleasant to say to Ellinor,by the rather grave and absent manner in which he awaited her return from taking off her out-of-door things.He broke off,indeed,in his conversation with Mrs.Forbes to go and meet Ellinor,and to lead her into the most distant window before he delivered her letters.