One desire possessed me, pressing before every other; it was
to see Miss Cardigan. I thought I should accomplish this very
soon after my landing. I found that I must wait for days.
It was very hard to wait. Yet mamma needed me; she was nervous
and low-spirited and unwell and lonely; she could not endure
to have me long out of her sight. She never looked with favour
upon any proposal of mine to go out, even for a walk; and I
could hardly get permission. I fancied that some - latent -
suspicion lay beneath all this unwillingness, which did not
make it more easy to bear. But I got leave at last, one
afternoon early in June; and took my way up the gay
thoroughfares of Broadway and the Avenue.
It was June, June all over. Just like the June of four years
ago, when Dr. Sandford took me away from school to go to West
Point; like the June of three years ago, when I had been
finishing my school work, before I went to Washington. I was a
mere girl then; now, I seemed to myself at least twenty years
older. June sweetness was in all the air; June sunlight
through all the streets; roses blossomed in courtyards and
looked out of windows; grass was lush and green; people were
in summer dresses. I hurried along, my breath growing shorter
as I went. The well-known corner of Mme. Ricard's
establishment came into view, and bright school-days with it.
Miss Cardigan's house opposite looked just as I had left it;
and as I drew near I saw that this was literally so. The
flowers were blossoming in the garden plots and putting their
faces out of window, exactly as if I had left them but a day
ago. My knees trembled under me then, as I went up the steps
and rang the bell. A strange servant opened to me. I went in,
to her astonishment I suppose, without asking any questions;
which indeed I could not. What if a second time I should find
Mr. Thorold here? Such a thought crossed me as I trod the
familiar marble floor, after the wild fashion in which our
wishes mock our reason; then it left me the next instant, in
my gladness to see through the opening door the figure of my
dear old friend. Just as I had left her also. Something, in
the wreck of my world, had stood still and suffered no change.
I went in and stood before her. She pulled off her spectacles,
looked at me, changed colour and started up. I can hardly tell
what she said. I think I was in too great a confusion for my
senses to do their office perfectly. But her warm arms were
about me, and my head found a hiding-place on her shoulder.