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Mrs. MacGill

Sunday evening

THIS day has been very wet. I had fully intended to go to church, because I always make a point of doing so unless too ill to move, as I consider it fully more a duty than a privilege, and example is everything. How-ever, after the fright I had yesterday, and the shaking, I had such a pain in my right knee that devotion was out of the question, even had my mantle been fit to put on (which it won't be until Cecilia has mended all the trimming), so I resolved to stay quietly in bed. After luncheon I could get no sleep, for Miss Pomeroy was singing things which Cecilia says are camp meeting hymns. They sounded to me like a circus, but they may introduce dance music at church services in New York, and make horses dance to it, too. Anything is possible to a people that | | 94 can produce girls like Virginia Pomeroy. One can hardly believe in looking at her that she belongs to the nation of Longfellow, who wrote that lovely poem on Maidenhood. Poor Mr. MacGill used to be very fond of it:—

Even if there were a river here (we can see nothing of the Dart from this hotel), one could never connect Miss Pomeroy with 'reluctant feet' in any way. She has quite got hold of that unfortunate young man. With my poor health, and sleeping so badly, it is very difficult for me to interfere, but justice to the son of my old friend will make me do what I can.

About half past five I came down and could see nobody. Mrs. Pomeroy suffers from the same tickling cough as I do, after drinking tea, and had gone to her own room. Cecilia was nowhere to be seen. I asked the waiter, who is red-faced but a Methodist, to | | 95 tell me where she was, and he told me in the Billiard Room. Of course I did n't know where I was going, or I should never have entered it, especially on a wet Sunday after-noon; but when I opened the door I stood horrified by what I saw.

Miss Pomeroy may be accustomed to such a place ( I have read that they are called "brandy saloons" in America), but I never saw anything like it. There was a great deal of tobacco, which at once set up my tickling cough. Sir Archibald was holding what gamblers call a cue, and rubbing it with chalk, I suppose to deaden the sound. On a table—there were several chairs in the room, so it cannot have been by mistake—sat Miss Pomeroy and Cecilia. The American was strumming on a be-ribboned banjo.

"Oh, Mrs. MacGill, I thought you were asleep," said Cecilia.

"I wish I were; but I fear that what I see is only too true. Pray, Cecilia, come away with me at once," I exclaimed.

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Sir Archibald had placed a chair for me, but I took no notice of it, except to say, "I'm surprised that you don't offer me a seat on the table."

We left the room at once, and I spoke to Cecilia with some severity, saying that I could never countenance such on-goings, and that Miss Pomeroy was leading her all wrong. "If she is determined to marry a baronet," I said, "let her do it; but even an American might think it more necessary that a baronet should be determined to marry her, and might shrink from such a form of pursuit. Well, if you are determined to laugh at me," I went on, "there must be some other arrangement between us, but you cannot leave me at present, alone on a hillside like this, just after influenza, amongst herds of wild ponies."

Cecilia cried at last, and upset me so much that I had another bad night, suffering much from my knee, and obliged to have a cup of cocoa at 2.30 A. M. Cecilia appeared half | | 97 asleep as she made it, although the day before she could spring out of bed the moment the light came in, to look at the sunrise. These so-called poetic natures are very puzzling and inconsistent.