"Will you ring for tea and candles, sister?" asked Miss King primly.--"We have had tea of course, Hyacinthe, but we will have some infused for you at once."
"Perhaps Hyacinthe doesn't like tea," suggested Miss Juliet with her thin, once-pretty hand on the rope.
"Not like tea? Absurd! Was not her father an Englishman, I should like to know? Our niece is not a heathen, Juliet."
"But, aunt," smiled Hyacinthe, "I do not like tea, after all. You are both so kind to me," sighed she: "I hope you will not ever regret my coming to England and to you."
"That Ernest's daughter--" said Miss Juliet softly.
"Should ever do aught to give us cause to blush--"
"Save with pride and pleasure," added the younger old lady, laying her fingers on the girl's soft, dark, abundant hair.
"I hope not, aunts." Hyacinthe looked at Miss King a bit wistfully as she spoke. "You know I am not come to be a burden to you--the madre wrote: I am come to England to pursue my art."
"Your dear mother did--" Miss Juliet chimed in gently.
"Write something of the kind, but, Hyacinthe, ladies do not go out into the world seeking their fortunes. I believe I have heard"--Miss King speaks austerely and as from some pinnacle of pride--"that there are _women_ who write and lecture and paint, and, in short, do anything that is disgraceful; but you, my dear, are not of that blood."
"Yes, aunt, I am. I would do any of those things--must do one of them or something--to help me find my Saxon god."
"Your what?" cries Miss King, staring over her spectacles at the serene, heroic young face.
"Your what, dear child?" murmurs Miss Juliet protectively, looking down into her niece's dark, fathomless eyes.
"Saxon god," says she quite low, for the first time in all her life experiencing a conscious shyness.
"Are you a pagan, Hyacinthe King?" shrieks the elder aunt.
"Tell us all about it, my dear," says Miss Juliet soothingly.
And Hyacinthe tells them her dream and her resolve.
"So much for an honest English gentleman wedding with a--"
"Lovely Greek girl," finishes Miss Juliet quietly, glancing for the first time at her sister. "They say your mother was very beautiful, Hyacinthe."
"Yes the madre is beautiful: she is like the Venus of the Capitol."