FullReads

“I have never built so many castles in my life as since I’ve known you, Miss Schuyler,” he said.

“Oh,” I answered as lightly as I could, “air-castles don’t count.”

“The building of air-castles is an innocent amusement enough, I suppose,” he said, “but I’m committing the folly of living in mine. I”–

Then I was frightened. When, all at once, you find you have something precious you only dimly suspected was to be yours, you almost wish it hadn’t come so soon. But just at that moment Mrs. Benedict called to us, and came tramping back from the gate, and hooked her supercilious, patronizing arm in Mr. Copley’s, and asked him into the sitting-room to talk over the “lady chapel” in her new memorial church. Then aunt Celia told me they would excuse me, as I had had a wearisome day; and there was nothing for me to do but to go to bed, like a snubbed child, and wonder if I should ever know the end of that sentence. And I listened at the head of the stairs, shivering, but all that I could hear was that Mrs. Benedict asked Mr. Copley to be her own architect. Her architect indeed! That woman ought not to be at large!

DURHAM, July 15
At Farmer Hendry’s.

We left York this morning, and arrived here about eleven o’clock. It seems there is some sort of an election going on in the town, and there was not a single fly at the station. Mr. Copley walked about in every direction, but neither horse nor vehicle was to be had for love nor money. At last we started to walk to the village, Mr. Copley so laden with our hand-luggage that he resembled a pack-mule. We made a tour of the inns, but not a single room was to be had, not for that night nor for three days ahead, on account of that same election.

“Hadn’t we better go on to Edinburgh, aunt Celia?” I asked.

“Edinburgh? Never!” she replied. “Do you suppose that I would voluntarily spend a Sunday in those bare Presbyterian churches until the memory of these past ideal weeks has faded a little from my memory? What, leave out Durham and spoil the set?” (She spoke of the cathedrals as if they were souvenir spoons.) “I intended to stay here for a week or more, and write up a record of our entire trip from Winchester while the impressions were fresh in my mind.”

“And I had intended doing the same thing,” said Mr. Copley. “That is, I hoped to finish off my previous sketches, which are in a frightful state of incompletion, and spend a good deal of time on the interior of this cathedral, which is unusually beautiful.” (At this juncture aunt Celia disappeared for a moment to ask the barmaid if, in her opinion, the constant consumption of malt liquors prevents a more dangerous indulgence in brandy and whiskey. She is gathering statistics, but as the barmaids can never collect their thoughts while they are drawing ale, aunt Celia proceeds slowly.)

“For my part,” said I, with mock humility, “I am a docile person who never has any intentions of her own, but who yields herself sweetly to the intentions of other people in her immediate vicinity.”

“Are you?” asked Mr. Copley, taking out his pencil.

“Yes, I said so. What are you doing?”

“Merely taking note of your statement, that’s all.–Now, Miss Van Tyck, I have a plan to propose. I was here last summer with a couple of Harvard men, and we lodged at a farmhouse half a mile from the cathedral. If you will step into the coffee-room of the Shoulder of Mutton and Cauliflower for an hour, I’ll walk up to Farmer Hendry’s and see if they will take us in. I think we might be fairly comfortable.”

“Can aunt Celia have Apollinaris and black coffee after her morning bath?” I asked.

“I hope, Katharine,” said aunt Celia majestically,–“I hope that I can accommodate myself to circumstances. If Mr. Copley can secure lodgings for us, I shall be more than grateful.”