An hour or two later they appeared again,--the dragon,who answers to the name of "aunt Celia,"and the "nut-brown mayde,"who comes when you call her "Katharine."I was sketching a ruined arch.The dragon dropped her unmistakably Boston bag.I expected to see encyclopaedias and Russian tracts fall from it,but was disappointed.The nut-brown mayde (who has been brought up rigidly)hastened to pick up the bag,for fear that I should serve her by doing it.She was punished by turning it inside out,and I was rewarded by helping her pick up the articles,which were many and ill assorted.My little romance received the first blow when I found that she reads the Duchess novels.I think,however,she has the grace to be ashamed of it,for she blushed scarlet when I handed her "A Modern Circe."I could have told her that such a blush on such a cheek would atone for reading Mrs.Southworth,but I refrained.After she had gone I discovered a slip of paper which had blown under some stones.It proved to be an itinerary.I didn't return it.I thought they must know which way they were going;and as this was precisely what I wanted to know,I kept it for my own use.She is doing the cathedral towns.I am doing the cathedral towns.Happy thought!Why shouldn't we do them together,--we and aunt Celia?
I had only ten minutes--to catch my train for Salisbury,but I concluded to run in and glance at the registers of the principal hotels.Found my nut-brown mayde at once on the pages of the Royal Garden Inn register:"Miss Celia Van Tyck,Beverly,Mass.;Miss Katharine Schuyler,New York."I concluded to stay over another train,ordered dinner,and took an altogether indefensible and inconsistent pleasure in writing "John Quincy Copley,Cambridge,Mass.,"directly beneath the charmer's autograph.
SHE
SALISBURY,June 1
The White Hart Inn.
We left Winchester on the 1.06train yesterday,and here we are within sight of another superb and ancient pile of stone.I wanted so much to stop at the Highflyer Inn in Lark Lane,but aunt Celia said that if we were destitute of personal dignity,we at least owed something to our ancestors.Aunt Celia has a temperamental distrust of joy as something dangerous and ensnaring.She doesn't realize what fun it would be to date one's letters from the Highflyer Inn,Lark Lane,even if one were obliged to consort with poachers and cockneys in order to do it.
We attended service at three.The music was lovely,and there were beautiful stained-glass windows by Burne-Jones and Morris.The verger (when wound up with a shilling)talked like an electric doll.
If that nice young man is ****** a cathedral tour,like ourselves,he isn't taking our route,for he isn't here.If he has come over for the purpose of sketching,he wouldn't stop at sketching one cathedral.Perhaps he began at the other end and worked down to Winchester.Yes,that must be it,for the Ems sailed yesterday from Southampton.
June 2.
We intended to go to Stonehenge this morning,but it rained,so we took a "growler"and went to the Earl of Pembroke's country place to see the pictures.Had a delightful morning with the magnificent antiques,curios,and portraits.The Van Dyck room is a joy forever.There were other visitors;nobody who looked especially interesting.Don't like Salisbury so well as Winchester.Don't know why.We shall drive this afternoon,if it is fair,and go to Wells to-morrow.Must read Baedeker on the bishop's palace.Oh dear!if one could only have a good time and not try to know anything!
Memoranda:This cathedral has the highest spire.Remember:
Winchester,longest nave;Salisbury,highest spire.
The Lancet style is those curved lines meeting in a rounding or a sharp point like this [drawing like two very circular n's next to each other] and then joined together like this:
the way they used to scallop flannel petticoats.Gothic looks like triangles meeting together in various spots and joined with beautiful sort of ornamented knobs.I think I know Gothic when I see it.Then there is Norman,Early English,fully developed Early English,Early and Late Perpendicular,and Transition.Aunt Celia knows them all apart.
HE
SALISBURY,June 3
The Red Lion.
I went off on a long tramp this afternoon,and coming on a pretty river flowing through green meadows,with a fringe of trees on either side,I sat down to make a sketch.I heard feminine voices in the vicinity,but,as these are generally a part of the landscape in the tourist season,I paid no special notice.Suddenly a dainty patent-leather shoe floated towards me on the surface of the stream.
It evidently had just dropped in,for it was right side up with care,and was disporting itself right merrily."Did ever Jove's tree drop such fruit?"I quoted,as I fished it out on my stick;and just then I heard a distressed voice saying,"Oh,aunt Celia,I've lost my smart little London shoe.I was sitting in a tree,taking a pebble out of the heel,when I saw a caterpillar,and I dropped it into the river,the shoe,you know,not the caterpillar."Hereupon she came in sight,and I witnessed the somewhat unusual spectacle of my nut-brown mayde hopping on one foot,like a divine stork,and ever and anon emitting a feminine shriek as her off foot,clad in a delicate silk stocking,came in contact with the ground.I rose quickly,and,polishing the patent leather ostentatiously,inside and out,with my handkerchief,I offered it to her with distinguished grace.She swayed on her one foot with as much dignity as possible,and then recognizing me as the person who picked up the contents of aunt Celia's bag,she said,dimpling in the most distracting manner (that's another thing there ought to be a law against),"Thank you again;you seem to be a sort of knight-errant!"
"Shall I--assist you?"I asked.(I might have known that this was going too far.)
"No,thank you,"she said,with polar frigidity."Good-afternoon."
And she hopped back to her aunt Celia without another word.