LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 341, 16 July 1875, Page 4

LITERATURE.

A LAST LOVE AT PORNIO,

( Continued.')

But there was nothing gross, indeed—nothing vulgar, indeed—in Ondelette and her environments. It seemed like a new poem, the bright and placid experience of the last few. hours to Kutterby, There was the sunny unfamiliar country; the brown peasants, merry amidst their rich lands, still almost in their yielding time; there was the quaint, tall, many-shuttered town, with narrow house fronts one above the other, and hanging gardens, and small castle jutting out where the sinuous shallow river passed into the little blue bay; there was the deep blue bay which, as you followed with keenest eye the track of its water, became somehow invisibly all one with the great outer sea. Then there had been the pleasant sight of ordered villa and chalet, with luxuriant garden; the villa, which was home for a while; the cosy lights and glooms of its chambers, full of objects which spoke to Butter by of gentle life, its joys and busyness—the music—Ondelette. Yes—Ondelette.

All this produced a pleasant sensation, You remember Gcethe when he was at Marienbad —the summer holiday, the encounter with one lorgets what German Fraulein, the stirred pulses, the half-recog-nised longings—and the poet was seventyfour. Fhilip Eutterby was twenty years younger; but no poet, you may say. No, indeed, there was little power of expression —much reticence and timid reserve about that lonely man, whose pictures were his friends, and whose hermitage was in the heart of London.

Ondelette was in high spirits next morning, at the ten o’clock breakfast : flushed with the salt sea-bath, and the walk after it along the gleaming morning coast, sparkling with sunshine, Philip Eutterby looked at

her from under his thin iron-grey eyebrows, with the quiet, steadfast examining eyes of the connoisseur of art eyes accustomed to the peaceful contemplation of beautiful things. Do Malmy noticed how closely ho looked at her. Presently, when the meal was over, host and guest marched out to the beach —the beach of La Novellaird, whose sands are washed by open sea : more timid bathers bathe in the little bay by the castle, right under Pornic town; but La Noveillard was always the choice of Dc Malmy, who was now only too glad to spend the best hours of the day there with his friend, and watch the sunlight steal along the coast, lighting up villa and villa-garden, and the the rising ground of brown ploughed land beyond, dotted with grey farms here and there, now rosy with late afternoon, and then look out to the clear and infinite sea, and in the far horizon the dark line of coast—the long dark streak of Isle Isoirmoutier.

‘ You find her very beautiful—my Ondelette ?’ said De Malmy, when they had watched the afternoon bathers, and when he saw that Eutterby was no more minded than himself to read the English newspaper which they had brought out lest talk should flag. Philip Eutterby did not often express admiration in strong words, and when he said quietly, ‘ I should think Ondelette a genius of happiness,’ the phrase meant much with him.

‘I have not judged it convenient to mention {o her that I have just received a proposal in marriage. The young man himself takes the initiative by writing me a letter which I have received this morning. He is called Jules Gerard—a young man of some little talent — sous-prefet of Saumur. Only twenty-eight years of age. I suppose he wishes to marry himself into a premature reputation for steadiness.’ ‘ What does Ondelette think of him ?’ asked Philip Eutterby rather nervously, ‘ Ondelette, dear friend, thinks well of him, of course; for I have not educated Ondelette to think ill of anybody. My child is as naive as your Shakspeare’s “ Miranda.” Besides, she is impulsh c and sympathetic. She is your true friend —Ondelette —when you have talked to her quietly for a quarter of an hour.’ ‘ I have not yet done so,’ remarked Philip Eutterby. * And this young man—does he know her well ?’

* jl la foi !if my child is your friend in a quarter of an hour, that is because you can know her in that time. Ondelette is excellent. I would not make a mere mariage de convenance for her her.’ ‘ There should be fine uses for so fine an instrument,’ said Philip Eutterby, broodingly, and in a low voice from under his thin grey moustache. ‘ But I cannot regard a sous prefecture as an adequate provision,’ De Malmy observed. ‘ She does not love him, then ?’ asked Eutterby. ‘ Eomantic fellow ! Yon forget of whom you speak. She is French —mu fille — et Men elcvee Of course she does not love him. . . . Well, well, Eutterby,

dear friend, we cannot settle it out here this afternoon. Let us go in. They will be back from their drive, ... I will consider

at great leisure Monsieur Gerard’s pretensions. ’

‘ And what will Madame de Malmy think of them ?’ asked Eutterby, rising from the low beach seat.

‘ She will think them unjustified. But what of that ? It is I who must decide, without prejudice or influence. I have never yet taken counsel of women —especially middle-aged women. Oh! les femmes, les femmes —ea ne vaut pas grand’ chose.’ Ondeletto and her mother had come in from their afternoon drive, when Rutterby and JJc Malmy re-entered the villa. And again to-day there was yesterday’s pleasure of the cosy dining-room and lamp-lit saloon afterwards. Philip Rutterby was again in his arm-chair, and was looking at Ondelette. ‘ Are you tired, Mr Rutterby ?’ said Ondelette, ‘ I will play us all some music, if you are.’ ‘ Will you take your promised walk with me? —your old evening round,’ Rutterby made answer.

‘ That is what I was longing for,’ said the girl, with glistening eyes. These young eyes, thought Philip Rutterby, can glisten with so small a pleasure. Her hat and shawl were on her in a minute. ‘ I)o not allow our child to tire you,’ said Madame de Malmy, who thought proper, in the interests of respectability, and of her own age, to insist upon the childhood of Ondelette.

‘ Ondelette is not accustomed tomake herself a burden,’ murmured her father, in his jealous regard for her. And he went out to the gate, and followed with his eyes the vanquishing figures of his daughter and his friend.

She had put her hand at once unasked in Rutterby’s arm, never thinking that his arm was not so much her own as was her father’s.

‘lf he were only ten years younger,’ thought De Malmy, going in, ‘ she would be very comfortably provided for. Even now’

‘Now what sort of a house is yours?’ asked Ondelette boldly, after two minutes of silence, for Eutterby did not begin a conversation. ‘I want so much to realise England—l have only read of it in books.’ ‘ A small house, in a quiet street, just out of a London sc uare. There is nothing to notice in the old house except my pictures.’

‘ Have you any pictures by artists I know about? Oh, yes—there was Crome—l forgot. ‘ The landscape painter, Corot —he alone among living men. Most Modern artists are too much for me, Ondelette. lam of the old school, and like the old thing best. ’ ‘ What else, then, Mr Eutterby ? What is it right to like —if you may always like wisely—among prints, for instance ?’ ‘You may always like Turner’s “Liber Studiorum.’ Then I have a few of Eembrandt’s etchings, and some prints of Marc Antonio’s. And most of Mantegna’s prints lam fortunate enough to possess. That is, fortunate, if my own taste is a right one. These great men who are dead, could be vigorous without being violent. I should like to show you one of Eembrandt’s landscapes —his most exquisite one. ‘ Is it very beautiful and rare ?’ she asked.

‘ They all somewhat rare. But much depends on the impression. My own impression of this happens to be fine. And yet it cost me less than sixty pounds, I recollect. ’ ‘ And are these on. the walls ?’

‘ I keep them in a portfolio—the score or so of Eembrandt’s etchings that 1 happen to have. My room is an old panelled room, less cheerful than your villa, but cheerful at

night, and so still that I can hear the tick of the insect in my tapestry, on the further wall, facing the windows, where I like the effect of tapestry, as that is a bad light for pictures. There is Flemish tapestry of the fifteenth century, and some Italian of the thirteenth. ’ ‘ You must be very happy with all your pictures, over there in London,’ tho girl said. ‘You cannot buy happiness by buying pictures, Ondelette,’ answered Mr Huttcrby, gently. They had got into the little town now. ( To he continued.')