Unconventional,
careless girl as Lady Florimel had hitherto shown herself to him,
he saw her sit that morning like the proudest of her race, alone,
and, to all appearance, unaware of a single other person's being
in the church besides herself. She manifested no interest in what
was going on, nor indeed felt any--how could she? never parted
her lips to sing; sat during the prayer; and throughout the
sermon seemed to Malcolm not once to move her eyes from the carved
crusader. When all was over, she still sat motionless--sat until
the last old woman had hobbled out. Then she rose, walked slowly from
the gloom of the church, flashed into the glow of the churchyard,
gleamed across it to a private door in the wall, which a servant
held for her, and vanished. If a moment after, the notes of a merry
song invaded the ears of those who yet lingered, who could dare
suspect that proudly sedate damsel thus suddenly breaking the ice
of her public behaviour?
For a mere school girl she had certainly done the lady's part well.
What she wore I do not exactly know; nor would it perhaps be well
to describe what might seem grotesque to such prejudiced readers
as have no judgment beyond the fashions of the day. But I will not
let pass the opportunity of reminding them how sadly old fashioned
we of the present hour also look in the eyes of those equally
infallible judges who have been in dread procession towards us ever
since we began to be--our posterity--judges who perhaps will
doubt with a smile whether we even knew what love was, or ever had
a dream of the grandeur they are on the point of grasping.
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