Four Meetings | Page 3

rare, but a possibly impure satisfaction, "But it has not been only the money; it has been everything. Everything has been against it I have waited and waited. It has been a mere castle in the air. I am almost afraid to talk about it. Two or three times it has been a little nearer, and then I have talked about it and it has melted away. I have talked about it too much," she said hypocritically; for I saw that such talking was now a small tremulous ecstasy. "There is a lady who is a great friend of mine; she does n't want to go; I always talk to her about it. I tire her dreadfully. She told me once she did n't know what would become of me. I should go crazy if I did not go to Europe, and I should certainly go crazy if I did."
"Well," I said, "you have not gone yet, and nevertheless you are not crazy."
She looked at me a moment, and said, "I am not so sure. I don't think of anything else. I am always thinking of it. It prevents me from thinking of things that are nearer home, things that I ought to attend to. That is a kind of craziness."
"The cure for it is to go," I said.
"I have a faith that I shall go. I have a cousin in Europe!" she announced.
We turned over some more photographs, and I asked her if she had always lived at Grimwinter.
"Oh, no, sir," said Miss Spencer. "I have spent twenty-three months in Boston."
I answered, jocosely, that in that case foreign lands would probably prove a disappointment to her; but I quite failed to alarm her.
"I know more about them than you might think," she said, with her shy, neat little smile. "I mean by reading; I have read a great deal I have not only read Byron; I have read histories and guidebooks. I know I shall like it."
"I understand your case," I rejoined. "You have the native American passion,--the passion for the picturesque. With us, I think it is primordial,--antecedent to experience. Experience comes and only shows us something we have dreamt of."
"I think that is very true," said Caroline Spencer. "I have dreamt of everything; I shall know it all!"
"I am afraid you have wasted a great deal of time."
"Oh, yes, that has been my great wickedness."
The people about us had begun to scatter; they were taking their leave. She got up and put out her hand to me, timidly, but with a peculiar brightness in her eyes.
"I am going back there," I said, as I shook hands with her. "I shall look out for you."
"I will tell you," she answered, "if I am disappointed."
And she went away, looking delicately agitated, and moving her little straw fan.

II.
A few months after this I returned to Europe, and some three years elapsed. I had been living in Paris, and, toward the end of October, I went from that city to Havre, to meet my sister and her husband, who had written me that they were about to arrive there. On reaching Havre I found that the steamer was already in; I was nearly two hours late. I repaired directly to the hotel, where my relatives were already established. My sister had gone to bed, exhausted and disabled by her voyage; she was a sadly incompetent sailor, and her sufferings on this occasion had been extreme. She wished, for the moment, for undisturbed rest, and was unable to see me more than five minutes; so it was agreed that we should remain at Havre until the next day. My brother-in-law, who was anxious about his wife, was unwilling to leave her room; but she insisted upon his going out with me to take a walk and recover his landlegs. The early autumn day was warm and charming, and our stroll through the bright-colored, busy streets of the old French seaport was sufficiently entertaining. We walked along the sunny, noisy quays, and then turned into a wide, pleasant street, which lay half in sun and half in shade--a French provincial street, that looked like an old water-color drawing: tall, gray, steep-roofed, red-gabled, many-storied houses; green shutters on windows and old scroll-work above them; flower-pots in balconies, and white-capped women in doorways. We walked in the shade; all this stretched away on the sunny side of the street and made a picture. We looked at it as we passed along; then, suddenly, my brother-in-law stopped, pressing my arm and staring. I followed his gaze and saw that we had paused just before coming to a caf��, where, under an awning, several tables and chairs were disposed upon the pavement The windows were open behind; half a dozen plants in tubs were ranged beside the