After the first thrills of joy at being there again had gone,
the profound stillness of the dripping little shrubbery
frightened me. It was so still that I was afraid to move;
so still, that I could count each drop of moisture falling from
the oozing wall; so still, that when I held my breath to listen,
I was deafened by my own heart-beats. I made a step forward
in the direction where the arbour ought to be, and the rustling
and jingling of my clothes terrified me into immobility. The house
was only two hundred yards off; and if any one had been about,
the noise I had already made opening the creaking door and so
foolishly apostrophising my handkerchief must have been noticed.
Suppose an inquiring gardener, or a restless cousin,
should presently loom through the fog, bearing down upon me?
Suppose Fraulein Wundermacher should pounce upon me suddenly
from behind, coming up noiselessly in her galoshes,
and shatter my castles with her customary triumphant "Fetzt
halte ich dich aber fest!" Why, what was I thinking of?
Fraulein Wundermacher, so big and masterful, such an enemy
of day-dreams, such a friend of das Praktische, such a lover
of creature comforts, had died long ago, had been succeeded
long ago by others, German sometimes, and sometimes English,
and sometimes at intervals French, and they too had all
in their turn vanished, and I was here a solitary ghost.
"Come, Elizabeth," said I to myself impatiently, "are you actually
growing sentimental over your governesses? If you think you
are a ghost, be glad at least that you are a solitary one.
Would you like the ghosts of all those poor women you
tormented to rise up now in this gloomy place against you?
And do you intend to stand here till you are caught?"
And thus exhorting myself to action, and recognising how great