Mrs. Pendrill was charmed with the beauty and sweetness of the girl, and it seemed as if Beatrice on her side was equally fascinated. When the time came to say good-bye, and the old lady held both her hands, and gazed into her bright face, as she asked for another visit very soon, she stooped suddenly, and kissed her with pretty, spontaneous warmth.
“Come again! Of course I will, as often as Monica will bring me. Good-bye, Mrs. Pendrill—Aunt Elizabeth I should _like_ to say”—with a little rippling laugh. “I think you are just fit to be Monica’s ‘Saint Elizabeth.’ Is it the air of this place that makes you all so perfectly delightful? I shall have to come and live here too, I think.”
And as she and Monica rode home together over the sweeping downs, Beatrice turned to her after a long pause of silence and said:
“Monica, it was a dangerous experiment asking me to Trevlyn.”
“Because I don’t feel as if I should ever want to leave it again. And I’m a dreadful sort of creature when I’m bent on my own way.”
“You will have to turn me out neck and crop in the end, I firmly believe. I feel I should just take root here, and never wish to go.”
Monica shook her head with a look of subdued amusement.
“I am very glad it pleases you so much; but do you know, Beatrice, I think you will have a different tale to tell in a week or two? You cannot realise, till you have tried it, how solitary and isolated we are, especially as the winter draws on. Very soon you will think it is a dreadfully lonely place—a sort of enchanted castle, as Randolph used to call it; and you will be pining to get back to the gay, busy whirl of life, that you have left behind.”
Monica stopped short there struck by the strange look turned upon her by her companion. Beatrice’s face had grown grave and almost pale. A curious wistful sadness shone in her eyes; it almost seemed as if tears glistened on the long lashes.
Her words were almost as enigmatical as her looks.
She gazed at Monica for a moment speechlessly, and then softly murmured:
PRINTED BY KELLY AND CO., GATE STREET, LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS, AND KINGSTON-ON-THAMES.
Minor punctuation and printer errors repaired.
End of Project Gutenberg's Monica, Volume 2 (of 3), by Evelyn Everett-Green