If she has memories, they are
sure to be sad and sacred ones; if she has not, that perhaps is
still sadder. We agreed, however, when the evening was over, that
Dr. La Touche was probably the love of her youth--unless, indeed, he
was simply an old friend, and the degree of Salemina's attachment
had been exaggerated; something that is very likely to happen in the
gossip of a New England town, where they always incline to
underestimate the feeling of the man, and overrate that of the
woman, in any love affair. 'I guess she'd take him if she could get
him' is the spoken or unspoken attitude of the public in rural or
provincial New England.
The professor is grave, but very genial when he fully recalls the
fact that he is in company, and has not, like the Trappist monks,
taken vows of silence. Francesca behaved beautifully, on the whole,
and made no embarrassing speeches, although she was in her gayest
humour. Salemina blushed a little when the young sinner dragged
into the conversation the remark that, undoubtedly, from the
beginning of the sixth century to the end of the eighth, Ireland was
the University of Europe, just as Greece was in the late days of the
Roman Republic, and asked our guest when Ireland ceased to be known
as 'Insula sanctorum et doctorum,' the island of saints and
scholars.
We had seen her go into Salemina's bedroom, and knew perfectly well
that she had consulted the Peabody notebook, lying open on the desk;
but the professor looked as surprised as if he had heard a pretty
paroquet quote Gibbon.
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