At length she was seeing somewhat of that grand
old world of which she had dreamed. As the gay crowds passed by her, so
had gay crowds paced those streets for centuries, in all their varying
costumes. Every spot told an historic tale, extending back into the
fabulous ages when Jan and Jannika, the aboriginal giant and giantess,
looked over the wall, forty feet high, of what is now the Rue Villa
Hermosa, and peered down upon the new settlers who were to turn them out
of the country in which they had lived since the deluge. The great
solemn Cathedral of St. Gudule, the religious paintings, the striking
forms and ceremonies of the Romish Church--all made a deep impression on
the girls, fresh from the bare walls and simple worship of Haworth
Church. And then they were indignant with themselves for having been
susceptible of this impression, and their stout Protestant hearts arrayed
themselves against the false Duessa that had thus imposed upon them.
The very building they occupied as pupils, in Madame Heger's pensionnat,
had its own ghostly train of splendid associations, marching for ever, in
shadowy procession, through and through the ancient rooms, and shaded
alleys of the gardens. From the splendour of to-day in the Rue Royale,
if you turn aside, near the statue of the General Beliard, you look down
four flights of broad stone steps upon the Rue d'Isabelle.
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