The Woman of Business, Chapters XLIX-L [pp. 489-492]

1570.1 L]TERATURL SUIENCJ AND ARR 489
No more shall silver bugles olow,
lNor pennons wave, nor lances shiver;
Nor knights and ladies whisper low
At twilight hour, when purpling flow
Thy storied waves, bright Guadalquivir.
'Tis vanished all, as fades the track
Of feet upon the sea-beat sand;
And nothing can again bring back,
What youth must have, what age must lack,
The gay romance of Spanish-land.
And so through life the prize wo deem
Well worth the toil it cost to gain
Flies like the mist at morning's beam Fades like the lips we kiss in dream Falls like our castles built in Spain.
I turned, and found my lady dear
With mild reproach in eyes most fair:
"But Love," said she, "has power to rear,
Firm as the hills, as sunlight clear,
A shining palace everywhere."
THE WOMAN OF BUSINESS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE BACtIELOR OF THE ALBANY.7"
CHAPTER XLIX.-IN WHICH THE TRAVELS ARE RELATED OF
MR. WOODVILLE AND MISS CATERAN.
THE spell which the winking philosopher exercised over Mr. Woodville must have been of wonderful power, to make him recant his
vows, registered at the shrine of Santo Giulio, against Alpine adventure for the remainder of his days; and there must have been other
influences at work, hardly less strong, to induce him, not only to go
mountaineering again, but to take two ladies along with him. One
of these fair ones, however, Mrs. Naworth, was only included to matronize the other; for the artist was so far from relishing her company, that he took a decided aversion to her before he set out. It
was no great wonder. Mrs. Naworth was a very different person from
Miss Cateran, though a member of the same Tyburnian coterie. She
was a widow, and comely enough, for the matter of that, save that she
had such very thin lips that she must have found it hard to bite them
when she was out of sorts, which (to do her justice) she seldom was,
when she had every thing her own way; but this, unluckily, not being
easy in a party of three (one being Mr. Woodville, who liked to have
his way, too), Mrs. Naworth had often occasion to bite her thin lips
upon the journey, or, at least, try to do it. We know Mr. Woodville's
peculiarities already, and that taking things easily and coolly was not
his strong point. In short, Miss Cateran had a hard card to play between her travelling-companions, and was never so hard pushed in her
life to make things smooth; for though she had always a drop of oil
about her for a creaking hinge or to make a rusty key turn in a lock,
the key and the hinge were sometimes too rusty, and Letitia's drop of
oil was applied in vain.
But as our concern is more with the latter part of the tour than
the beginning, we must skim very rapidly over a multitude of incidents
which, though in themselves amusing, would needlessly retard our
progress.
The Falcon, at Berne, was the rendezvous which Mr. Sandford had
given the artist; but that gentleman had not even been heard of there,
which surprised Mr. Woodville much more, you may suppose, than it
did Miss Cateranl. Mrs. Naworth (for we must give a touch or two of
that lady), who had been against going to Berne, declared "she knew
perfectly well Mr. Sandford would not keep his engagement." The
artist's back was up in a moment, and, to punish her, he announced
his intention of waiting two or three days for the missing gentleman.
"Oh, Mr. Woodville!-really-wait at this stupid place!" exclaimed the widow.
"Stupid place!" he replied. "Why, you have only seen the bears
once."
Mrs. Naworth bit her lip really this time.
Miss Cateran never was more at a loss; for she relished the idea
of staying at Berne as little as the widow, and at the same time she
feared that her friend's opposition would make Woodville stop for a
week.
Having all the air of paying no attention whatever to Mrs. Naworth,
she said quietly, as if addressing herself exclusively to the artist
"Yes; I suppose we must wait-unless We could leave a letter for
your friend, and tell him where to follow us."' "You think that would do," said Woodville, who was growing
pliable as wax in Letitia's hands.
"Indeed, I think it would," she answered, with every appearance
of being as anxious about the meeting as he was.
"Where would you propose to go?"
"What should you say to Lucerne?"
Woodville assented before Mrs. Naworth had time to do mischief
by expressing her satisfaction, as she was wild to go up the Migi. We
need not say that this was an excursion which the artist left the ladies
to take by themselves. He waited for them at the Swan, at Lucerne,
growing more impatient every moment at his friend's default.
"What can have happened to him? What can the reason be?"
he said ruefully to Miss Cateran, when she rejoined him.
"The poor gentleman must have been taken ill," she replied, feel ingly, though never in her life more inclined to laugh.
A"What do you think I ought to do?'
"Let me thinkl," said Letitia. You would have sworn that no
other thought but the success of the Swiss Hamlet Association occupied
her whole soul.
"Really," she said, after time enough for considering a question
of life and death, "I don't think we could do better than leave another
letter behind us here, and then move about and see what is to be seen.
Suppose we go to Interlachen?"
He agreed, or submitted; and in this way Miss Cateran managed
to accomplish all the usual aims of the tourist in Switzerland. Mr.
Woodville, hopeless now of effectitg his own special object, suffered
her to lead him wherever she pleased, 6nly bristling up when Mrs. Na worth presumed to hint a longing to scale some Alp or another, no
matter how insignificant. Then he was terribly morose, and told such
stories of wolves, and avalanches, and the lammergeyer, that he made
the ladies (or at least one of them) quake in their shoes, and scarcely
dare to raise their eyes above the line of perpetual snow.
But they had mountains enough in all conscience; for Letitia, left
to do what she pleased, decided on crossing the St. Gothliard, after
which, and the usual round of the Lakes (except Little Orta, which
Woodville would not hear of), they came to Turin; and it was there
that the idea (pregnant with results of which she little dreamed) oc curred to Miss Cateran of paying Mrs. Rowley's valleys a visit, as they
were so near.
Here commenced the really pleasant part of the tour, at least to
two of the party. Mrs. Naworth caught a bad cold, and was left be. hind to take care of herself, which Miss Cateran knew she could do
very well. She and the bachelor went off together in the most unfeel ing spirits, and enjoyed themselves like grasshoppers. The weather,
was lovely, though autumn was so far advanced; and it was probably
during those delicious days, and in this sequestered scenery, that the
idea of a companionship not to end with the tour developed itself from
what was only a blossom in Paris into a full-blown flower.
They reached old Bobbio, making a bagatelle of the badness of the
road, which was no better than it had been a dozen years before.
"Avenge, 0 Lord, thy jolted saints!" cried Woodville, in such
spirits as to make a jest of his hardships.
Miss Cateran, on her part, sat down to the sorriest of dinners in
the poorest of little inns, and never once turned up her nose at the fare.
As to the intrinsic dulness of the place, it was of no consequence,
as it was not dull to its visitors. The duller it was, in the sense of
being quiet, they liked it the more, in the humor they were in. It was
so nice to have it all to themselves. Woodville sketched; the lady
sat by him with a book, or strolled about, never far off; to gather a
flower, or pick up the last of the strawberries.
One day it occurred to the artist to sketch the scene of the catas trophe which Alexander had witnessed so long ago, but not so long
that the memory of his gallantry on the occasion had ceased to live in
the valley. Almost the only change since that epoch was, that patches
of brushwood had grown up here and there, and promised in time to
conceal entirely the unsightly scar made by the landslip. The peasants
pointed to the place where the old minister's chalet had stood, and
showed how the stream had been forced out of its former channel by
the debris of the fallen mountain. There was a striking view of the
whole scene from a break in the pine-wood that hung over the little
inn of the village.
"There can't be a better point of view than this," said Woodville.
opening his sketch-book.
"Shall I read to you, while you draw?" said the lady.
"By all means. What book have you got?"
"Oh, Shakespeare, of course. You know it was the only book you
brought, except that odd volume of Rabelais which you keep all to
yourself."
"Ah, that perfidious Sandford!" cried Woodville; "if he is not
ill, which I greatly fear, he has forgotton all about the'Abbey of
Theleme.' It can't be helped-vogee-la-galere-read me Love's Labour's
tLost. That was another source of his fine inspirations.
Letitia read a bit;* but in truth the book was only to " give herself
a countenance," as the French say-any thing or nothing sufficed to
take off her attention.
"Those men at work down there," she said, "will come into your
sketch beautifully."
L]I T E,RA 4TUP,E S C!rENCE, A-ZV-D AR I:
489
J7o0. 1