None of them were forbidden books, and Gertrude had not stopped at home for the sake of a chance to climb to the inaccessible shelves.
She possessed herself of a very obvious volume--one of the series of the Arabian Nights--and she brought it out into the portico and sat down with it in her lap. There, for a quarter of an hour, she read the history of the loves of the Prince Camaralzaman and the Princess Badoura. At last, looking up, she beheld, as it seemed to her, the Prince Camaralzaman standing before her.
A beautiful young man was making her a very low bow--a magnificent bow, such as she had never seen before. He appeared to have dropped from the clouds; he was wonderfully handsome; he smiled--smiled as if he were smiling on purpose. Extreme surprise, for a moment, kept Gertrude sitting still; then she rose, without even keeping her finger in her book. The young man, with his hat in his hand, still looked at her, smiling and smiling.
It was very strange.
"Will you kindly tell me," said the mysterious visitor, at last, "whether I have the honor of speaking to Miss Went-worth?"
"My name is Gertrude Wentworth," murmured the young woman.
"Then--then--I have the honor--the pleasure--of being your cousin."
The young man had so much the character of an apparition that this announcement seemed to complete his unreality. "What cousin?
Who are you?" said Gertrude.
He stepped back a few paces and looked up at the house; then glanced round him at the garden and the distant view.
After this he burst out laughing. "I see it must seem to you very strange," he said. There was, after all, something substantial in his laughter. Gertrude looked at him from head to foot.
Yes, he was remarkably handsome; but his smile was almost a grimace.
"It is very still," he went on, coming nearer again.
And as she only looked at him, for reply, he added, "Are you all alone?"
"Every one has gone to church," said Gertrude.
"I was afraid of that!" the young man exclaimed.
"But I hope you are not afraid of me."