It is not to be inferred from what has just been said that it had become a matter of importance to Colin how Alice Meredith looked. On the contrary, the relations between the two young people grew more distant, instead of becoming closer. It was{244} Lauderdale with whom she talked about the domestic arrangements, which he and she managed together; and indeed it was apparent that Alice, on the whole, had come to regard Colin, in a modified degree, as she regarded her brother—as something to be taken care of, watched, fed, tended, and generally deferred to, without any great possibility of comprehension or fellowship. Lauderdale, like herself, was the nurse and guardian of his invalid. Though she lost sight of him altogether in the discussions which perpetually arose among the three (which was not so much from being unable to understand these discussions as from the conclusion made beforehand that she had nothing to do with them), it was quite a different matter when they fell into the background to consult what would be best for their two charges. There Alice was the superior, and felt her power. She talked to her tall companion with all the freedom of her age, accepting his as that of a grandfather at least, to the amusement of the philosopher, to whom her chatter was very pleasant. All the history of her family (as he imagined) came unawares to Lauderdale’s ears in this simple fashion, and more of Alice’s own mind and thoughts than she had the least idea of. He walked about with her as the lion might have done with Una, with a certain mixture of superiority and inferiority, amusement and admiration. She was only a little girl to Lauderdale, but a delightsome thing in her innocent way; and, so far from approving of Colin’s indifference, there were times when he became indignant at it, speculating impatiently on the youthful folly which did not recognise good fortune when it saw it. “Of all women in the world the wife for the callant, if he only would make use of his een,” Lauderdale said to himself; but so far from making use of his eyes, it pleased Colin, with the impertinence of youth, to turn the tables on his Mentor, and to indulge in unseasonable laughter, which sometimes had all but offended the graver and older man.

Alice, however, whose mind was bent upon other things, was none the wiser for this; and for her own part found “Mr. Lauderdale” of wonderful service to her. When they sat making up their accounts at the end of the week, Alice with her little pencil putting everything down in pauls and scudi, which Lauderdale elaborately did into English money, as a preliminary to the exact division of expenses which the two careful housekeepers made, the sight was pleasant enough. By times it occurred that Alice, dreadfully puzzled by her companion’s Scotch, but bound in chains of iron by her good breeding, which{245} coming direct from the heart was of the most exquisite type, came stealing up to Colin, after a long interview with his friend, to ask the meaning of a word or two preserved by painful mnemonic exercises in her memory; and she took to reading the Waverley novels by way of assisting her in the new language; but, as the only available copies of these works were in the shape of an Italian translation, it may be imagined that her progress was limited, and that the oral teaching was the most instructive.

Meanwhile, Meredith lived on as best he could, poor fellow, basking in the sun in the middle of the day, and the rest of his time sitting close to the fire with as many pillows and cloaks in his hard, old-fashioned easy chair as might have sufficed for Siberia; and, indeed, it was a kind of Siberian refuge which they had set up in the top floor of the empty cold palace, which was used for a residence only during the hot season, and was adapted solely to the necessities of a blazing Italian summer. For the Italian winter—often so keen and penetrating, with its cutting winds that come from the mountains, and those rapid and violent transitions which form the shadow to its sunshine—there, as elsewhere, little provision had been made; and the surprise of the inexperienced travellers, who had come there for warmth and genial atmosphere, and found themselves suddenly plunged into a life of Spartan endurance—of deadly chill and iciness indescribable—has been already described. Yet neither of them would consent to go into Rome, where comfort might be had by paying for it, and leave the brother and sister alone in this chilly nest of theirs. So they remained together on their lofty perch, looking over the great Campagna, witnessing such sunsets and grandeurs of cloud and wind as few people are privy to all their lifetime; watching the gleams of snow appear and disappear over the glorious purple depths of the Sabine hills, and the sun shooting golden arrows into the sea; and gloom more wonderful still than the light, rolling on like an army in full march over that plain which has no equal. All these things they watched and witnessed, with comments of every description, and with silence better than any comment. In themselves they were a strange little varied company; one of them, still in the middle of life, but to his own consciousness done with it, and watching the present actors as he watched the sunsets; two of them full of undeveloped prospects beginning the world which was so familiar and yet so unknown; the last of all making his way steadily with few delays into a world still more unknown{246}—a world which they all by times turned to investigate, with speculations, with questions, with enthusiastic anticipation, with profound, child-like faith. Such was their life up among the breezes, on the soft slopes of the Alban hills; and in the midst of everything more serious, of opening life and approaching death, Lauderdale and Alice sat down together weekly to reckon up their expenses in Italian and English money, and keep their accounts straight, as the little housewife termed it, with the world.

During this wintry weather, however, the occupations of the party were not altogether limited to these weekly accounts. Meredith, though a little startled by the surprise shown by his companions at the too ingenious device of the map—which, after all, was not his device, but that of some Tract Society, or other body more zealous than scrupulous—had not ceased his warnings, in season and out of season. He talked to Maria about dying in a way which inspired that simple woman to the unusual exertion of a pilgrimage to Vicovaro, where the kind Madonna had just been proved upon ample testimony to have moved her eyes, to the great comfort and edification of the faithful. “No doubt it would be much better to be walking about all day among the blessed saints in heaven, as the Signor Arturo gives himself the trouble of telling me,” Maria said, with some anxiety in her face, “but vedi, cara Signorina mia, it would be very inconvenient at the beginning of the season;” and, indeed, the same opinion was commonly expressed by Arthur’s Italian auditors, who had, for the most part, affairs on hand which did not admit of immediate attention to such a topic. Even the good-natured friars at Capo Croce declined to tackle the young Englishman after the first accost; for they were all of opinion that dying was a business to be got over in the most expeditious manner possible, not to be dwelt on either by unnecessary anxiousness before or lingering regret after; and, as for the inevitable event itself, there were the last sacraments to make all right—though, indeed, the English invalid, povero infelice, might well make a fuss about a matter which must be so hopeless to him. This was all the fruit he had of his labours, there being at that time no enterprising priest at hand to put a stop to the discussions of the heretic. But, at the same time, he had Colin and Lauderdale close by, and was using every means in his power to “do them good,” as he said; and still, in the quiet nights, when the cold and the silence had taken entire possession of the great, vacant house and the half-frozen village, poor{247} Meredith, dragged his chair and his table closet to the fire, and drew his cloak over his shoulders, and added yet another and another chapter to his “Voice from the Grave.”

As for Colin, if he had been a littèrateur by profession, it is likely that, by this time, he would have began to compile “Letters from Italy,” like others of the trade; but, being only a Scotch scholar, the happy holder of a Glasgow bursary, he felt himself superior to such temptations; though, indeed, after a week’s residence at Frascati, Colin secretly felt himself in a condition to let loose his opinion about Italian affairs in general. In the meantime, however, he occupied himself in another fashion. Together, he an............