In the meantime, however, she made herself very agreeable and attractive to her hostesses, and enjoyed Pen’yllan very much, in a girlish way. She explored the tiny village, and the rude shore. She made friends with fishermen, and their wives, and sturdy children. She won admiration on every side by her pretty interest in everything appertaining to the Pen’yllanites. She took long walks on the sands, and brought home shells, and sea-weed, and pebbles, with such honest delight in any trifling rarity, as made Lisbeth look on and feel restless, and the Misses Tregarthyn grow young again, unitedly.
“I wish, my dear,” said Miss Clarissa to Lisbeth, “that you enjoyed yourself as much; but—but I am afraid you do not. I am afraid you find Pen’yllan rather dull.”
“I never found Pen’yllan so pleasant in my life before, but you know I am not like Georgie,” said Lisbeth. “Pen’yllan is all right, Aunt Clarissa, and I enjoy myself here more than I should anywhere else.”
“I am glad to hear you say that, my love,” Miss Clarissa faltered. “Sometimes, do you know, I have really fancied that you were not quite—quite happy?”
Lisbeth got up from her chair, and came to the window, her incomprehensible eyes reaching far out to sea.
“Happy!” she echoed, absently. “Is anybody happy? What a conundrum to answer? As for me, I give it up.”
She gave up a good many things during these weeks at Pen’yllan. She was wont to be fond of a certain cool class of metaphysics, but somehow things of that order seemed to slip from her grasp. She was not so sure of her self as she had been—not so obstinately complacent. Indeed, she had never been so ill-satisfied and out of patience with Lisbeth Crespigny in her life.
In the course of a week or so, Hector Anstruthers came, as he had promised. One quiet afternoon, Miss Millicent, who was sitting at the window, looked out into the garden, with a sudden expression of surprise.
“Sister Clarissa!” she exclaimed, “Miss Esmond, there is a gentleman coming up the walk; a young gentleman, and really a very handsome one. Do either of you know him?Dear me, his face seems very familiar. It can’t be——”
Georgie ran to the window, and the next minute was waving her kind little hand to the individual in question, and smiling, and nodding her head.
“You ought to know him, Miss Tregarthyn,” she said. “It is Mr. Hector Anstruthers.”
“Oh!” broke forth Miss Clarissa, in some distress.
“And Lisbeth is here! I do hope, sister Millicent——”
“He saw Lisbeth very often when she was at home,” explained Georgie, feeling very guilty, and extremely fearful of committing herself. “I know Lisbeth did not like him very well at first, but he was one of Mrs. Despard’s favorites, and—he is a sort of cousin of mine.”
It was a great relief to the Misses Tregarthyn, this piece of news. They remembered various unpleasant little episodes of the past too well, to have confronted serenely the re-responsibility of bringing their dear Lisbeth face to face with this young man again. Indeed, Miss Millicent had turned pale, and Miss Clarissa had lost her breath at the mere thought of it. They had hardly recovered themselves, when the visitor was handed into the room.But, of course, what Miss Esmond said must be correct, and, under such circumstances, how delightful it would be to welcome this genius and hero to Pen’yllan once more.
They had heard wondrous reports of his career from chance visitors, even though the beloved Lisbeth had been so reticent. They had heard of his good fortune, his good looks, his talent, his popularity, and, remembering the fair-haired, blue-eyed young fellow, whom Lisbeth had snubbed so persistently, they had wondered among themselves if all they heard could possibly be true. But here was the admirable Crichton to speak for himself, and so changed was his appearance, so imposing his air, so amiable his condescension, that each gentle spinster owned in secret that really, after all, it seemed probable that rumor, for once, had not exaggerated. And it is not to be denied that Mr. Hector Anstruthers was shown to an advantage upon this occasion. On his way from the small bandbox of a station, he had been reminded of many a little incident in that far-distant past, which had somehow or other warmed his heart toward these good, simple souls. They had been true and kind, at least. They had never failed him from first to last; they had pitied and tried tocomfort him when his fool’s paradise had been so rudely broken into. He remembered how Miss Clarissa had stolen down into the garden, that last, bitter night, and finding him lying full length, face downward, upon the dewy grass, among the roses, had bent over him, and put her timid hand upon his shoulder, and cried silently, as she tried to find words with which she could console him, and still be loyal to her faithful affection for that wretched girl. He remembered, too, how fiercely he had answered her, like a passionate young cub as he was; telling her to leave him alone, and let him fight it out with himself and the devil, for he had had enough of women. She had not been offended, good little Miss Clarissa, though she had been dreadfully shocked and troubled. She had cried more than ever, and patted his sleeve, and begged him to think of his dear mother, and forgive—forgive; ending by sobbing into her dainty handkerchief.
So, when he entered the pretty parlor, and saw this kind friend standing near Georgie, a trifle tremulous and agitated at the sudden sight of him, everything but his memory of what a true, generous little soul she was, slipped out of his mind, and he actually blushed with pleasure.
“My dear Miss Clarissa!” he said; and, witha sudden frank boyishness, such as Georgie had never seen him give way to before, he put one strong young arm about her, and kissed her withered cheek twice.
“My dear boy!” said Miss Clarissa. A moment before she had been on the verge of making him her best bow, and calling him “Mr. Anstruthers.” “How pleasant it is to see you! How pleasant it is!”
The brightest of sweet smiles dimpled Miss Georgie’s mouth. How good, and honest, and unaffected he was, after all! How kind at heart! How she wished that Lisbeth could have seen him just then! Indeed, she found it necessary to hold herself very bravely in check for a moment or so, for fear she should be tempted to give way to any weak impulse of feeling; he seemed so worthy to be admired and loved.
But Lisbeth was not in the house. No one knew where she was, exactly. Lately she had indulged in the habit of taking even longer walks than Georgie’s, and often lonely ones. Sometimes, in the morning, or afternoon, they would miss her for an hour or so, and she would come back rather fagged, and well blown about, and at such times it always appeared that she had been for a walk.
“For the good of my health,” she once said to Georgie. “I find it benefits me, physically and morally. Pen’yllan is a queer place, and is productive of queer effects upon people.”
Among other things, Georgie discovered that she, too, sometimes talked to the children who played upon the sands, and that she had her favorites, to whom she had once or twice even condescended to tell certain tales of fairies and mermaids. When Georgie mentioned this discovery, she laughed and colored, as if half ashamed of herself, and explained the matter in her usual style.
“The fact is,” she said, “I do it as a sort of penance. When I was a girl, and lived here, the children were afraid of me, and it was no wonder. I used to concoct horrible eerie tales about the devil-fish, to frighten them, and I rather enjoyed my reputation as a sort of hobgoblin creature, who had an uncanny knowledge of the terrors of the sea. Some of them used to delight me by screaming, and running away, when they caught sight of me; and now I have arrived at years of discretion, I feel as if I ought to do something to retrieve myself with this second generation. Poor little imps! Their lives are not too easy.”
She was away, indulging in one of these walks, this afternoon.
“We could find her somewhere on the shore, I know,” said Georgie, in answer to Miss Tregarthyn’s inquiry. “She is fond of the shore, and always goes there for her strolls. If Hector is equal to a sea-breeze, and a mile or so of sand, after his journey, he might even go in search of her.”
And it having been proved satisfactorily that Hector was not only equal to such exertion, but anxious to enjoy it; after an hour’s chat with Miss Millicent, and Miss Clarissa, and Miss Hetty, Georgie ran up stairs for her hat, and returning to the parlor, took charge of the expedition.
It really seemed one of the peculiarities of Pen’yllan to be on its good behavior at opportune times.
“It is bluer than ever, to-day,” said Georgie, nodding at her friend, the sea, as they strolled toward it. “And the crests of the little waves are whiter, and the sea-gulls are in a better temper than they usually are, and more satisfied with their lot.”
She had never looked brighter or more attractive herself, and this was her companion’s mental comment. The many resplendentyoung swains who admired Miss Georgie Esmond, as she appeared in London ball-rooms, would surely have become more hopelessly enamored than ever, had they seen her with the Pen’yllan roses on her cheeks, and the sparkle of the sun-lit sea in her eyes.
“Where is there another creature like her?” said Hector Anstruthers to himself. “Where is there another creature as fresh, as good, as natural and unspotted?”
He had thought of her very often of late, and indeed had been quite eager to make his visit to Pen’yllan, for no other reason, he told himself, than because he should see her there, and hear her sweet young voice again. And now he had come, and she had welcomed him, and they were walking over the sands, side by side. And yet—and yet—Was it possible that he felt restless and dissatisfied with his own emotions? Was it possible that the rapture he had tried to imagine, in London, was not so rapturous here, in Pen’yllan? Could it be that, after all, he was still only admiring her affectionately, in a brotherly way, as he had always done—admiring and reverencing her, gently, as the dearest, prettiest, truest girl he had ever known? Long ago, when, at the time of that old folly, he remembered a certain tremulous bliss he had experienced when he had been permitted to spend an hour with the beloved object, he remembered the absolute pangs of joy with which one glance from certain great,cruel, dark eyes had filled him; he remembered how the sound of a girlish voice had possessed the power to set every drop of blood in his veins beating. He was as calm as ever he had been in his life, as he strolled on with Georgie Esmond; he could meet her bright eyes without even the poor mockery of a tremor. He had felt nothing but calm pleasure even when he grasped her soft hand in greeting. Would it always be thus? Was it best that it should be so? Perhaps! And yet, in the depths of his heart lay a strange yearning for just one touch of the old delirium—just one pang of the old, bitter-sweet pain.
“There!” exclaimed Georgie, ending his reverie for him. “There she is, standing on the rocks. Don’t you see that dark-blue ribbon, fluttering?”
It was curious enough that his heart should give such a startled bound, when his eyes fell upon the place to which Georgie directed his attention. But, then again, perhaps, it was no wonder, considering how familiar the scene before him was. Years ago he had been wont to come to this very spot, and find a slight figure standing in that very nook of rocks; a slight girl’s figure, clad in a close-fitting suit of sailor-blue, a cloud of blown-about hair falling to thewaist, and dark-blue ribbons fluttering from a rough-and-ready little sailor-hat of straw. And there was the very figure, and the very accompaniments; the dress, the abundant tossed-about hair, the fluttering ribbon, the sea, the sky, the shore. He was so silent, for a moment, that Georgie spoke to him again, after a quick glance at his changed expression.
“Don’t you see that it is Lisbeth?” she said, laughing. “She is very quiet, but she is alive, nevertheless. We shall reach her in a minute. She is watching the gulls, I think. I thought we should find her here. This is our favorite resting-place.”
Lisbeth was evidently either watching something, or in a very thoughtful mood. She did not move, or even appear to be conscious of any approaching presence, until Georgie called to her, “Lisbeth! Lisbeth!” and then she looked round with a start.
“What!” she said. “Is it you two? How you startled me! You came like ghosts! And Mr. Anstruthers,” glancing at Hector, “looks like one. He is so pale!”
“I have seen a ghost,” was his reply.
“I am glad to hear it,” said Lisbeth, coolly. “Ghosts make a place interesting.”
She is so like herself, so self-possessed, andwholly Lisbeth-like, that she wakens him completely from the sort of stupor into which he had for a moment fallen. She holds out her hand for him to shake, and favors him with an unmoved, not too enthusiastic smile. She is polite and reasonably hospitable in her greeting, but she does not seem to be overwhelmed with the power of her emotions.
“Sit down,” she says, “and let us rest a while. We have plenty of time to reach home before dinner; and if we hadn’t, it would not matter much. My aunts are used to being kept waiting. They are too amiable to be iron-hearted about rules.”
So they sit down, and then, despite the reality of her manner, Anstruthers finds himself in a dream again. As Lisbeth talks, her voice carries him back to the past. Unconsciously she has fallen into an attitude which is as familiar as all the rest, her hands folded on her knees, her face turned seaward. The scent of the sea is in the air; the sound of its murmurs in his ears. The color on the usually clear, pale cheek is the color he used to admire with such lover-like extravagance—a pure pink tint, bright and rare. She seems to have gone back to her seventeen years, and he has gone back with her.
When at last they rise to return, he is wandering in this dream still, and he is very silent as they walk home. As they enter the garden gate, they see Miss Clarissa standing at the window, watching for them, just as she had used to do, to Lisbeth’s frequent irritation, in the olden days. And Lisbeth, pausing at the gate, gathered a large red rose.
“The roses are in bloom,” she says, “just as they were when I went away with Mrs. Despard. I could almost persuade myself that I had never been away at all.”
That velvet-leaved red rose was placed carelessly in her hair, when she came down stairs, after dressing for dinner, and its heavy fragrance floated about her. She wore one of her prettiest dresses, looked her best, and was in a good humor; and accordingly the Misses Tregarthyn were restored to perfect peace of mind, and rendered happy. It was plain, they thought, that Miss Esmond had been right, and there was no need for fear. How the spinster trio enjoyed themselves that evening, to be sure!
“You used to sing some very pretty songs for us, my love,” said Miss Clarissa. “I wonder if you remember the one Hector was so fond of? Something very sweet, about drinkingto somebody with your eyes, and he would not ask for wine. I really forget the rest.”
Lisbeth, who was turning over a pile of her old music, looked up at Anstruthers with a civil, wicked smile.
“Did I sing, ‘Drink to me only’?” she said. “And was it a favorite of yours? I wonder if it is here? How nice that Aunt Clarissa should remind us of it!”
She drew out the yellow old sheet from under the rest of the music in a minute more, her smile not without a touch of venomous amusement. How she had loathed it a few years ago!
“I wonder if I could sing it,” she said; and, prompted by some daring demon, she sat down at the piano, and sang it from beginning to end. But, by the time she had struck the last chord, her mood changed. She got up, with a little frown, and she did not look at Anstruthers at all.
“Bah!” she said. “What nonsense it is!” And she pushed the poor, old, faded sheet impatiently aside.
Anstruthers moved a step forward, and laid his hand upon it.
“Will you give it to me?” he asked, with a suppressed force in his manner, quite new.
“Why?” she demanded, indifferently.
“For a whim’s sake,” he answered. “There is no accounting for tastes. Perhaps I may fancy that I should like to learn it.”
She raised her eyebrows, and gave her shoulders a puzzled little shrug.
“You are welcome to it,” she commented. “It is not an article of value.”
“Thanks,” rather sardonically; and he folded the sheet, and slipped it into his pocket.
Their life at Pen’yllan was scarcely exciting; but notwithstanding this, they found it by no means unenjoyable, even now, when the first week or so had accustomed them to it. They took long stretches of walks; they sunned themselves on the sands; they sailed, and rowed, and read, and studied each other in secret. Georgie, who studied Lisbeth and Anstruthers by turns, found that she made more progress with the latter than the former. Lisbeth, never easy to read, was even more incomprehensible than usual. She shared all their amusements, and was prolific in plans to add to them, but her manner toward her ex-adorer was merely reasonably civil and hospitable, and certainly did not encourage comment. To her friend it was a manner simply inscrutable.
“Can she care at all?” wondered Georgie.“She does not look as if she had ever been sorry in her life; and yet she cried that day.”
With Anstruthers it was different. He could not pursue the even tenor of his way without feeling sometimes a sting. At first he controlled himself pretty well, and held his own against circumstances, even almost calmly. Then the stings came only at rare intervals, but afterward he experienced them more frequently. He was not so callous, after all, and he found it more difficult to conceal his restlessness when some old memory rushed upon him with sudden force. Such memories began to bring bitter, rebellious moods with them, and once or twice such moods revealed themselves in bitter speeches. Sometimes he was silent, and half gloomy, sometimes recklessly gay. But at all times he held to Georgie as his safeguard. Whatever his mood might be, he drew comfort from her presence. She gave him a sense of security. That kind little hand of hers held him back from many an indiscretion. Surely, the day was drawing near when he could open his heart to her, and ask her to let the kind young hand be his safeguard forever. He was sorely tempted many a day, but somehow it always ended in “Not yet! Not quite yet!” But his tender admirationfor her showed itself so undisguisedly, in every action, that the Misses Tregarthyn looked on delighted.
“I am sure that there is an understanding between them,” observed Miss Millicent.
Miss Hetty shook her head in a comfortable, approving fashion.
“Ah, yes, indeed!” she said. “One can easily see that. What do you think, my dear?” This was to Lisbeth, who was sitting reading.
Lisbeth shut her book suddenly, and getting up, came to the window.
“What is it you are saying?” she demanded, in the manner of one who had just awakened from a sleep, or a drowsy reverie. “I don’t think I heard you.”
“We were speaking,” said Miss Millicent, “of our young friends in the garden. Sister Hetty thinks, with me, that Hector is very fond of Miss Esmond.”
Lisbeth looked out into the garden, where the two stood together, Georgie blushing and smiling, as fresh and flower-like herself as any of Miss Clarissa’s many blossoms, Hector talking to her eagerly, his eyes full of pleasure in her beauty and youth.
“Fond of her?” she said, abstractedly. “Who is not fond of her?”
“But,” suggested Miss Hetty, “we mean fond of her in—in a different way.”
She had laid her hand on Lisbeth’s shoulder, and, as she spoke, she thought she felt a slight start; but the girl’s voice was steady enough when she spoke the next minute.
“Oh!” she said, laughing a little, “you mean that he is in love with her. I have no doubt you are right, though—though I had scarcely thought of that. Men are always in love with somebody; and if he is in love with Georgie, it does him great credit. I did not think he had the good taste.”
But the fact was, that the idea was somethinglike a new light dawning upon her. Actually she had been so blind as not to think of this. And it had been before her eyes day after day!
“You have been an idiot,” was her unceremonious mental comment upon her own stupidity. “You have thought so much of yourself, that you have seen nothing. It is Hector Anstruthers who has touched her heart. She doubted either herself, or him, when she was ‘not so happy.’ And this is the end of it—the end of it. Good!”
Perhaps she was relieved, and felt more comfortable, for she had never been more amusing and full of spirit than she had appeared when she joined the couple in the garden.
The twilight had been falling when she left the house; and when the soft dusk came on, they still loitered in the garden. The air was warm and balmy. Miss Clarissa’s flower beds breathed forth perfume; the murmur of the waves upon the beach crept up to them; the moon rose in the sky, solemn, watchful, and silver-clear.
“Who would care to go back to earth, and parlors?” said Georgie. “This is Arcadia—silent, odorous, and sweet. Let us stay, Lisbeth.”
So they sauntered here and there until they were tired, and then they found a resting-place, under a laburnum tree; and Anstruthers, flinging himself upon the grass, lay at full length, his hands clasped under his head, watching Lisbeth, in newly stirred bitterness and discontent.
Discontent? Ah! what discontent it was. What bitterness! To-night it reached its climax. Was he a man, indeed, or had he gone back to boyhood, and to that old folly upon which his youth had been wrecked? Moonlight was very becoming to Lisbeth. It gave her colorless face the white of a lily leaf, and her great eyes a new depth and shadow. She looked her best, just now, as she had a habit of looking her best, at all inopportune and dangerous times.
Georgie, leaning, in a luxury of quiet dreaming, against the trunk of the laburnum, broke in upon his mental plaints, by speaking to her friend.
“Sing, Lisbeth,” she said. “You look as if you were in a singing mood.”
Lisbeth smiled, a faint smile not unlike moonlight. She was in a singing mood, but she was in a fantastic, half-melancholy mood, too. Perhaps this was why she chose a rathermelancholy song. She folded her hands upon her knees, in that favorite fashion of hers, the fashion Anstruthers remembered so well, and began;
“All that I had to give I gave—Good-by!Yet Love lies silent in the grave,And that I lose, which most I crave,Good-by! Good-by! Good-by!“Nay! turn your burning eyes away!Good-by!It comes to this—this bitter day,That you and I can only say,Good-by! Good-by! Good-by!“The rest lies buried with the past!Good-by!The golden days, that sped so fast,The golden days, too bright to last;Good-by! Good-by! Good-by!“The fairest rose blooms but a day,Good-by!The fairest Spring must end with May,And you and I can only say,Good-by! Good-by! Good-by!”
“All that I had to give I gave—Good-by!Yet Love lies silent in the grave,And that I lose, which most I crave,Good-by! Good-by! Good-by!
“Nay! turn your burning eyes away!Good-by!It comes to this—this bitter day,That you and I can only say,Good-by! Good-by! Good-by!
“The rest lies buried with the past!Good-by!The golden days, that sped so fast,The golden days, too bright to last;Good-by! Good-by! Good-by!
“The fairest rose blooms but a day,Good-by!The fairest Spring must end with May,And you and I can only say,Good-by! Good-by! Good-by!”
“Ah, Lisbeth!” cried Georgie, when she stopped. “What a sad thing! I never heard you sing it before.”
“No,” answered Lisbeth. “I don’t thinkanybody ever heard me sing it before. It is an imitation of a little German song I have heard, or read, somewhere. I can’t remember where, indeed. I can remember nothing but that the refrain of ‘Good-by’ haunted me; and the words I have just sung grew out of it.”
Anstruthers said nothing. He had watched her face, as she sung, and had almost lost control over himself, as he was often on the verge of doing lately. What a consummate actress the girl was! The mournful little song had fallen from lips as sweetly and sadly as if both words and music welled from a tender, tried, soft heart. An innocent girl of sixteen might have sung just such a song, in just such a voice, if she had lost her lover. Once he had been amazed by the fancy that the large, mellow, dark eyes were full of tears.
He had been quiet enough before, but after the song was ended, he did not utter a word, but lay silent upon the grass until their return to the house.
Georgie rose first, and then Lisbeth and himself. But Georgie, going on before them, left them a moment together, and as they crossed the lawn, Lisbeth paused, and bending over a bed of lilies to gather a closed whitebud, sang, in a low tone, as if unconsciously, the last verse.
“The fairest rose blooms but a day,Good-by!The fairest Spring must end with May,And you and I can only say,Good-by! Good-by! Good-by!”
“The fairest rose blooms but a day,Good-by!The fairest Spring must end with May,And you and I can only say,Good-by! Good-by! Good-by!”
When she stood upright, she found herself confronting a face so pale and agitated, that she drew back a little.
“I wish to God,” he broke out, “I wish to God that you were a better woman!”
She looked up at him for a second, with a smile, cold, and strange, and bitter.
“I wish to God I was!” she said, and, without another word, turned from him and walked away, flinging her closed lilies upon the dewy grass.
When, the next day, at noon, they strolled out upon the lawn, the lilies were lying there, their waxen petals browning and withering in the hot sun. Georgie stooped, and picked one up.
“What a pity!” she said. “They would have been so pretty to-day. I wonder who gathered them.”
Lisbeth regarded the poor little brown bud with a queer smile.
“I gathered them,” she said. “It does seem a pity, too—almost cruel, doesn’t it? But that is always the way with people. They gather their buds first, and sympathize with them afterward.” Then she held out her hand. “Give it to me,” she said; and when Georgie handed the wilted thing to her, she took it, still half smiling in that queer way. “Yes,” she commented. “It might have been very sweet to-day. It was useless cruelty to kill it so early. It will never be a flower now. You see, Georgie, my dear,” dryly, “how I pity my bud—afterward! Draw a moral from me, and never gather your flowers too soon. They might be very sweet to-morrow.”
She had not often talked in this light, satirical way of late, but Georgie observed that she began to fall into the habit again after this. She had odd moods, and was not quite so frank as her young admirer liked to see her. And something else struck Georgie as peculiar, too. She found herself left alone with Hector much oftener. In their walks, and sails, and saunterings in the garden, Lisbeth’s joining them became the exception, instead of the rule, as it had been heretofore. It seemed always by chance that she failed to accompany them, but it came to the same thing in the end.
Georgie pondered over the matter in private, with much anxiety. She really began to feel as if something strange had happened. Had there been a new quarrel? Hector was more fitful and moody than ever. Sometimes he looked so miserable and pale, that she was a little frightened. When he talked, he was bitter; and when he was silent, his silence was tragical. But he was as fond of her as ever he had been. Nay, he even seemed fonder of her, and more anxious to be near her, at all times.
“I am not a very amusing companion, Georgie, my dear,” he would say, “but you will bear with me, I know. You are my hope and safeguard, Georgie. If you would not bear with me, who would?”
She often wondered at his way of speaking of her, as his safeguard. Indeed, he not only called her his safeguard, but showed, by his manner, that he flew to her as a sort of refuge. Once, when they had been sitting together in silence; for some time, he suddenly seized her hand, and kissed it passionately and desperately.
“Georgie,” he said, “if I were to come to you some day and ask you to save me from a great danger, would you try to do as I asked you?”
She did not draw her hand away, but let it rest in his, as she answered him, with a quiet, half-sad smile:
“I would not refuse to try to help any one in the world, who was in danger—even a person I was not fond of,” she said. “And you know we have been friends all our lives, Hector.”
“But if I were to ask a great gift of you,” he persisted, “a great gift, of which I was not worthy, but which was the only thing that could save me from ruin?”
“You must ask me first,” she said, and then, though it was done very gently, she did take her hand away.
Having coolly laid her plans for leaving the two to enjoy themselves, Lisbeth retired upon her laurels, with the intention of finding amusements of her own. She had entertained herself before, easily enough, why not again? Naturally, as they had fallen in love with each other, they would not want her; even Georgie would not want her. And it was quite natural that they should have fallen in love. They were the sort of people to do it. And Georgie would make a charming wife, and, if her husband proved a tyrant, would still go down upon her knees and adore him, and thank Heaven for her prince’s affection, and his perfections, to the end of her innocent days. As for herself, it was no business of hers, when she had done her duty toward her friend. The best thing she could do, would be to leave them alone, and she left them alone, and gave them every opportunity to be lover-like, if they had chosen.
But one day, Miss Clarissa, looking up fromher sewing, started, quite nervously, at the sudden impression made upon her of something new in her dear Lisbeth’s appearance.
“My dear Lisbeth!” she exclaimed, “how pale and ill you look!”
“I am always pale,” said Lisbeth.
“But, my love,” protested Miss Clarissa, “you are pale, to-day, in a different way. You must be suffering. Dear! dear! How careless in us not to have remarked it before! I almost believe—nay, indeed, I am sure—that you look thin, actually thin!”
“I am always thin,” said Lisbeth.
But Miss Clarissa was not to be consoled by any such coolness of manner. When she looked again more closely, she was quite sure that she was right, that her dear Lisbeth showed unmistakable signs of being in a dreadful state of health. She fell into a positive condition of tremor and remorse. She had been neglected; they had been heartlessly careless, not to see before that she was not strong. It must be attended to at once. And really, if Lisbeth had not been very decided, it is not at all unlikely that she would have been put to bed, and dosed, and wept over by all three spinsters at once.
“I hope it is not that Pen’yllan does notagree with you,” faltered Miss Hetty. “We always thought the air very fresh and bracing, but you certainly do not look like yourself, Lisbeth.”
And the truth was that she did not look like herself. Much as she might protest against the assertion, she was thinner and paler than usual.
“I am not ill,” she said, “whether I look ill or not. I never was better in my life. I have not slept very well of late; that is all. And I must beg you to let me have my own way about it, Aunt Clarissa. It is all nonsense. Don’t fuss over me, I implore you. You will spoil Georgie’s love story for her, and make Mr. Anstruthers uncomfortable. Men hate fuss of any kind. Leave me alone, when they are in the house, and I will take all the medicine you choose to give me in private, though it is all nonsense, I assure you.”
But was it nonsense? Alas! I must confess, though it is with extreme reluctance, that the time came when the invincible was beaten, and felt that she was. It was not nonsense.
One afternoon, after sitting at her bedroom window for an hour, persuading herself that she was reading, while Georgie and Anstruthers enjoyed atête-à-têtein the garden below, shesuddenly closed her book, and, rising from her chair, began to dress to go out.
She was down stairs, and out upon the beach, in five minutes; and, once away from the house, she began to walk furiously. She looked neither to right nor left, as she went. She was not in the humor to have her attention distracted from her thoughts by any beauty of sea, or sky, or shore. She saw the yellow sand before her, and that was all. She reached the old trysting-place, among the rocks, before she stopped. Once there, she gave herself time to breathe, and, standing still, looked back at the ground over which she had come. There was a worn-out expression in her face, such as the Misses Tregarthyn had never yet seen, even when they thought her at her worst. And yet, in a minute more, she smiled with actual grimness.
“I am being punished now,” she said, aloud. “I am being punished now for everything I have ever done in my life. Now I begin to understand.”
There was humiliation enough in her soul then to have made her grovel in the sand at her feet, if she had been prone to heroics or drama. Yes, she was beginning to understand. It was her turn now. Oh, to have come to this! To have learned this!
It was characteristic of her nature—an unfortunate nature at this time, passing through a new experience, and battling fiercely against it—that when, immediately afterward, the tears began to fill her eyes, and roll down her cheeks, they were the bitter, bitter tears of passionate mortification and anger. She could almost have killed herself, for very self-contempt and shame.
“What reason is there in it?” she said. “None. What has brought me to it? Nothing. Is he as worthy now as he was then? No! Isn’t it sheer madness? Yes, it is.”
She spoke truly, too. There was no reason in it. It was madness. He had done nothing to touch her heart, had made no effort to reach it. And yet he had reached and touched it. It would not have been like her to love a man because he was good, because he had made love to her; indeed, because of anything. Her actions were generally without any cause but her own peremptory fancies; and here, some strange, sudden caprice of emotion had been too much for her. How she had suffered since she discovered her weakness, no one but herself would ever know. She had writhed under it, burned under it, loathed it, and yet been conquered by it. Almost every blade ofPen’yllan grass reminded her of some wrong she had done to the kindly, impetuous young fellow, who had loved her in the past. Almost every grain of Pen’yllan sand taunted her with some wanton selfishness, or cruelty, which must be remembered by the man who could have nothing but dislike for her in the present.
“I should be grateful now,” she cried, bitterly. “Yes! Grateful for a tithe of what I once had under foot. This is eating dirt with a vengeance.”
She might well frighten Miss Clarissa with her pallor and wretched looks. The intensity of her misery and humiliation was wearing her out, and robbing her of sleep and appetite. She wanted to leave Pen’yllan, but how could she suggest it? Georgie was so happy, she told herself, with a vindictive pleasure in her pain, that it would be a pity to disturb her.
She walked up and down the beach for half an hour before she returned home; and when she went her way, she was so tired as to be fairly exhausted. At the side door, by which she entered the house, she met Georgie, who held an open letter in her hand.
“Whom from?” asked Lisbeth, for lack of something to say.
“Mamma,” was the girl’s answer. “Shewonders when we are going home; but I am enjoying Pen’yllan so much——”
She paused, and blushed. Just lately it had occurred to her that it might be possible that Lisbeth misunderstood her relation to Hector, and something in Lisbeth’s face made her stop and blush in this opportune manner.
“The weather is so lovely,” she ended, “that I don’t think I want to go yet.”
Lisbeth smiled, but her smile was an abstracted sort of affair.
“No,” she said. “We won’t go yet. Pen’yllan is doing both of us good; and it is doing Mr. Anstruthers good, too. We won’t go yet. Tell Mrs. Esmond so, Georgie.”
And then she carried her absent smile up stairs.
Georgie stood still, and looked after her. She blushed more deeply than ever. A queer distress and discomfort came upon her, and filled her mind. She had only wondered, before, if it was possible that Lisbeth did not know, did not wholly understand; but now the truth revealed itself in an uncomfortable flash of recognition.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, under her breath. “She does not see. She thinks—I am sure she thinks—” But she did not put the rest into words.
Pen’yllan, and the lovely weather, quite lost their charm for the moment. As she walked slowly down the hall, toward the parlor, holding her mother’s letter in her hand, she would almost have been glad to run away. She remembered so many little peculiarities she had noticed in Lisbeth’s manner, of late. She had managed to leave her alone with Hector so often; she had taken so many of those long walks by herself; she had not looked well; shehad sometimes been abstracted and restless. The girl’s heart quite fluttered at the thought which all these things forced upon her. She was afraid to indulge in such a fancy. That day, when her confession had been made upon the beach, Lisbeth had confessed that she was sorry for her past cruelty. Could it be that her remorse had developed into a stronger feeling? Could it be that she was more than sorry now? That she was beginning to value the love she had thrown away, even to long for it? As I have said, the thought frightened Georgie a little. She had seen so much to admire in Hector Anstruthers, that she had often wondered, innocently, how it was possible that Lisbeth could have resisted his numerous charms and perfections. How, indeed, could any woman whom he loved be so hard to please as not to appreciate him? She, herself, had appreciated him, she told herself, blushing, even though he had not loved her at all as he had loved Lisbeth. And yet she felt now as if it would be almost dreadful to think that Lisbeth, cool, self-controlled Lisbeth, had given way, in spite of her coolness and self-control. And then, if this was the true state of affairs, how much more dreadful it became to feel that she was misunderstood; that Lisbeth saw inher a rival. Something must be done, it was plain, but it was a difficult matter to decide what the something should be. Ah! if it had only been a matter she could have talked over with mamma, who knew everything, and could always advise her. But it was Lisbeth’s secret—Lisbeth’s and Hector’s; and so she must be loyal to her trust.
She was quite sad, in the midst of her labyrinth, all the afternoon; so sad, that when Anstruthers came in from the village, to partake of Miss Clarissa’s tea, he marked the change in her at once. But he was in a gloomy mood himself; so it is not to be wondered at that the small party around the table was not nearly so gay as usual. Lisbeth had a headache. Her eyes were heavy, and she said but little, and disappeared as soon as the meal was at an end.
Georgie would have followed her at once, but in the hall Hector stopped her.
“Come into the garden, Georgie,” he said; “I have something to say to you.”
“Very well,” said Georgie, “as soon as I have asked Lisbeth to come, too.”
“But,” he returned, “I do not want Lisbeth. What I have to say I must say to you, not Lisbeth.”
Georgie had been standing with one foot on the lowest stair, and her hand on the balustrades, but a tone in his voice made her turn round, and look up questioningly. He was pale and haggard. She saw in an instant that he was not quite himself. A little pain shot through her tender heart. How unhappy he looked!
“You are very pale, Hector,” she said, pityingly.
He tried to smile, but it was a constrained effort.
“I suppose I am nervous,” he answered. “Be good to me, Georgie, my dear.” And he held out his hand to her. “Come,” he said, “Lisbeth does not care for our society much. She always avoids us when she can.”
Georgie’s face fell. Had he seen it, too?
Then surely it must be true that Lisbeth did avoid them.
She was so full of her trouble about Lisbeth, that it scarcely occurred to her mind that he had made a very simple request, in an unusual way. She did not even ask herself what he could be going to say, that he would not say before Lisbeth.
But she became more conscious of the strangeness of his mood every moment. Hehardly spoke half a dozen more words, until they reached their usual seat, under the laburnum. There, when she sat down, he flung himself upon the grass, at her side, in his favorite unceremonious fashion; but for a minute or so, he did not even look at her. She had never thought him boyish before, but just then the thought entered her mind, that he was very boyish indeed, and she began to pity and wonder at him more and more.
Suddenly he turned toward her and spoke.
“Georgie, my dear,” he said, his voice quite trembling, “I am going to ask you for that great gift, of which I am so unworthy.”
What need that he should say another word? She knew quite well, then, what he meant, and why it was that he had not wanted Lisbeth. And, ready as she usually was with her blushes, she did not blush at all. She even lost all her bright color at once, and confronted him with a face quite pale and altered.
“You may go on, Hector,” she said; “I will listen.”
So he broke out hurriedly and desperately, and poured forth his appeal.
“I don’t know how I dare ask so much,” he said. “I don’t know how I dare speak at all.You do not understand what my life has been. God forbid that you should! But what is left of it is not worthy of you, Georgie—the sweetest, purest woman that God ever made. And yet I think it is because I honor you so much, that I dare to throw myself on your mercy. I want to be a better man, my dear, and—and—will you help me? You see what I am asking you for, Georgie?” And he bent his pale face over her hand, kissing it as some sad penitent might kiss a saint’s.
A strange love-making, indeed! The girl gave a little sob. Yes, actually, a little sob. But she let him hold her hand, just as she had let him hold it, that day before. She had put her budding love aside, and outlived it bravely; but there was a pang in this, nevertheless, and she could not help but feel it. It would be over in a moment, but it stung sharply, for the instant.
“Yes, Hector, I see,” she answered, almost directly. “You are asking me if I will marry you.”
“Yes, my dear.” And he kissed her hand again.
Then there was a silence, for a little while; and he waited, wondering and feeling, God knows what strange hope, or fear, at heart. Atlength, however, another fair, small hand was laid softly on his, causing him to glance up, questioningly.
“Is that the answer?” he ventured, with a new throb of the heart.
But she shook her head, smiling a sweet, half-sad smile.
“It is notthatanswer,” she said, “but it is an answer in its way. It means that I am going to speak to you, from my heart.”
“I think you always do that,” he said, unsteadily.
“Yes, always; but now, more than ever, I must be very true to you, indeed, to-day, because—because you have made a mistake, Hector.”
“A mistake! Then it is not the first.”
But what a craven he felt at soul! How hard it was to meet her clear, bright eyes!
“You have made a mistake,” she went on. “Oh, if I was not true to you, and to myself as well, your whole life might be a mistake from this hour, and everything might go wrong. You fancy that, because you can admire and trust me, that you could learn to love me, too, in that best way, as you do not now, when I was your wife. But you could not, however hard you might try, and however hard I mighttry, too; you could not. You could only teach yourself a poor imitation of that best way, and you would be unsatisfied at heart, Hector; and so should I. Husbands and wives ought to have that best kind of love, and nothing else, because nothing else will fill its place—the place in their hearts that God made to be filled by it. Because you are honest and true to me,” with a warm grasp of the small hand, though warm tears were in her eyes, “you do not say that you have that kind of love to offer me, and I know you have not. I think that, perhaps, you could not give it to me, even if—don’t be angry, Hector, because I could not help seeing it—you had not given it, almost in spite of yourself, to some one else——”
“To some one else!” he exclaimed.
“Yes,” she said, sorrowfully, “to Lisbeth.”
He drew his hands away, and covered his face with them, with something like a groan of despair.
“I am answered,” he said. “Don’t say anything more, Georgie. That is enough.”
“Don’t misunderstand me,” cried the girl. “You could not help it. How could you? The old love never died out, really. And now, when you see her so much better, and morebeautiful, how could it be otherwise than that it should spring into new life, and be stronger than ever? It is Lisbeth you love, Hector, and she is worthy of your love—of anybody’s love, if you would only understand her rightly. Is it pride that holds you back from showing your heart to her, or is it because, even though you love her, you have not forgiven her for your old misery? Tell me.”
“Do I love her,” he asked, “or hate her?”
“You love her,” answered Georgie.
“And yet,” he said, gloomily, “I have asked you to marry me, and you have answered me, as gently as an angel might have done.”
“It was only that you made a mistake,” said the girl.
“A mistake!” he echoed. “Ay, it was a mistake! And, as I said, it is not the first I have made. My life has been full of blunders.”
“Oh!” said Georgie, “how I wish I was wise enough to know how to set them right. If you would only trust me and let me try.”
He gave her a mournful smile.
“I thought there was a way,” he said, “but you did not agree with me.”
“I knew better,” shaking her head, and coloring. “And perhaps I was too proudand jealous. I am not so good as you think me. I am very fond of you, but not fond enough to take your half-loaf. Let us forget it altogether.”
Surely, so serious a question was never so dismissed in so short a time. For these few busy moments, the matter was as completely disposed of, as if they had spent hours in arguing it. He scarcely knew how it was that he felt so sure that he need say no more; that the brave, simple, pretty Georgie had set his poor, weak plans aside so easily, and yet so tenderly. Much as he admired and reverenced her, there was a depth in her girlish nature which he had never sounded. It was all over for him with Georgie Esmond, though he need not fear that her friendship would ever waver.
“If I was only wise enough to help you,” she repeated; “if you would only trust me, and let me try.”
“If any one could help me, you could,” he said, “but there is no help for me.”
He had never once admitted to himself that this miserable passion could ever make him happy. It had never occurred to his mind that its termination would be anything but awretched and humiliating one. As Georgie had suggested, he loved, but had not forgiven, and he told himself that his love was degraded infatuation. What was there to tie to in such a feeling? Did he trust the woman to whom he was in secret a slave? No, he trusted her no more to-day than he had done before. But she had a hold upon his heart-strings, nevertheless. The old witchery was exercising its full power upon him. It had been so strong, at last, that he had been maddened into making this coward’s effort to free himself. If Georgie would stretch out her hand, she might save him a fatal weakness, and so, even while he despised himself for his selfish folly, he had resolved to throw himself upon Georgie’s mercy. And here was the end of it! Georgie was wiser than himself, clearer of sight, truer of soul, stronger, with a brave simplicity; and she had proved to him what a shameful folly it was. Georgie would have none of him; and yet how sweet she was, God bless her!
“I shall leave Pen’yllan, in the morning,” he said. “There is nothing to keep me here now, since you do not want me. Say that you forgive me, Georgie, and we will bid each other good-by, for the present.”
“You must not think that I have anything toforgive,” she answered; “but I do not say that you will be wrong in going. I believe it will be best. You do not quite understand yourself yet. Go away, and give yourself time to find out, whether you can conquer your heart, or not. The time will come when you will know.”
“And then?” somewhat bitterly.
“Something will happen, I think,” her simple faith in the kindness of Fortune asserting itself. “I cannot believe that you will always be as unhappy as you are now. One of you will be sure to do or say something that will help the other.”
A sudden color leaped to his face. Her words held a suggestion of which he had never once thought, and which set his pulses beating hard and fast.
“What?” he exclaimed, his new feeling giving him no time to check himself. “You do not think the time will ever come, when she—when she might feel, too——”
“I think,” said the girl, in a grave, almost reverent voice, “I think the time has come now.”
When they returned to the house, Lisbeth, seeing them from the parlor window, made a mental comment.
“Judging from his face,” she observed, “I should say that he had asked her to marry him, and had been accepted. Judging from hers, I should say her answer had been ‘No.’ You are not easy to read, for once, Georgie. What does it mean?”
Georgie came into the house, with a more composed look than her face had worn for several days. She laid her garden hat upon the hall table and walked straight into the parlor to her dear Lisbeth. She had a very shrewd idea that her dear Lisbeth knew nothing of their guest’s intended departure, and she wanted to be the first to break the news to her. It would not matter if any little secrets were betrayed to herself. So she went to the window, and laid her hand on Lisbeth’s shoulder.
“Did Hector tell you that he was going?” she asked, as if his having done so would have been the most natural thing in the world.
“That he was going?” repeated Lisbeth.
Georgie gazed considerately out into the garden.
“Yes. Back to London, you know—to-morrow. I suppose he thinks he has been idle long enough.”
Lisbeth shrugged her shoulders.
“Rather sudden, isn’t it?” she commented. “I think you have been the first to hear the news.”
“Gentlemen always do things suddenly,” remarked Georgie, astutely.
She had no need to have been so discreet. Lisbeth had been very cool under the information. An indifferent observer might have easily concluded that she cared very little about it; that her interest in Hector Anstruthers’ going and coming was an extremely well-controlled feeling. When he came into the room himself, a few minutes later, she was quite composed enough to touch upon the subject with polite regrets.
“Aunt Clarissa will positively mourn,” she ended, with one of her incomprehensible smiles. “She has been almost radiant during your visit.” And there her share in the matter seemed to terminate. She said nothing when the three old ladies, hearing the news, poured forth affectionate plaints, from the first course at dinner until the last. She listened composedly, without remark, though once or twice she looked at Georgie with rather an interested air. It was her turn to feel curious now, and she was curious enough. Georgie blushed when she was looked at scrutinizingly, but hermanner was decidedly not that of a girl who had just accepted a lover.
“And,” said Lisbeth, examining her coolly, “she would not refuse him. She must be fond of him; and if she is fond of him, she is too sweet-natured and straightforward to coquet with him. And yet—well, it is decidedly puzzling.”
She found the evening rather a bore, upon the whole. How was it that it dragged so, in spite of her efforts? She thought it would never come to an end. When, with long-suffering good-nature, Hector drew out the chess-table, and challenged the delighted Miss Clarissa to a game, her patience fairly gave way. She turned to the piano for refuge, and sang song after song, until she could sing no more. Then, when Georgie took her place, she made a furtive exit, and slipped out through the hall and a side door into the garden. What made her turn her steps toward Miss Clarissa’s rose-thicket? She did not know. But she went there. There she had bidden her boy-lover good-by, and broken his heart; there she had sung her little song to Georgie and Hector. On both occasions it had been warm, and balmy, and moonlight; and now it was warm, and balmy, and moonlight again. She stood and looked throughthe trees, catching silvery glimpses of the sea. In a minute or so she moved her hand in an impatient gesture.
“I am sick of it all,” she cried, breaking the silence. “I am sick of the whole world, and of myself more than the rest. How I wish I was like Aunt Clarissa.”
She began to wander about restlessly, pulling at the roses with no particular object, but because she could not keep still. Buds and blossoms, red, and cream, and white, were torn from their stems ruthlessly, until her hands were full, and then she stopped again, half wondering at herself.
“What am I thinking of?” she said. “What do I want them for? Poor things!” remembering her parable bitterly. “They might have been very sweet to-morrow.”
She held the cool, fresh things close up to her face, breathing in their fragrance eagerly; and when she took them away, their blossoms were bright here and there—perhaps with dew; certainly with dew, if it was dew that wet her fevered cheeks, and softened her eyes so strangely.
Scarcely three minutes later she turned with a start, and then stood listening. Some one had left the house, and was coming across thelawn toward her. She waited a few seconds, to make sure that she was not mistaken, and then she bent down over a bush, and began leisurely to gather more roses, though she was overloaded already.
“Where is Georgie?” she asked, calmly, of the intruder, when he reached her side.
“Georgie,” returned a rather constrained voice, “is talking to Miss Hetty. Miss Clarissa sent me here to remind you that the dew is falling, and that you are not strong enough to bear the night air.”
“Miss Clarissa is very good,” Lisbeth answered. “And so are you. But dear Miss Clarissa has been threatening me with an untimely grave, as the result of night air, ever since I was six months old; so, perhaps, I am not so grateful as I ought to be. I love darkness rather than light, upon the whole, and don’t find that it disagrees with me; perhaps because my deeds are evil.”
“Perhaps,” dryly.
For fully two minutes, she gathered her flowers in silence, while Anstruthers waited, and looked at her; but at last she stood upright, and their eyes met.
“It is a beautiful night,” she remarked, sententiously.
“Yes.”
“We have had a great number of lovely nights, lately.”
“Yes.”
She busied herself with her roses for a little while, to the exclusion of everything else, and then she gave it up.
“Well,” she said, “suppose we go into the house. I can do nothing with them here. The fact is, I don’t know why I gathered them, unless it was from an impulse of destructiveness. Let us go.”
“Stop a moment,” he said; nay, almost commanded her.
She paused, not seeming in the least disturbed, however. She would have cut off her right hand, almost, before she would have exhibited an emotion.
“I had a reason of my own for coming here,” he went on, “apart from Miss Clarissa’s commands. I want to bid you good-by.”
“You must be going,” she commented, “very early in the morning.” And yet her heart was beating like a trip-hammer.
“It is not that,” was his reply, “though I am going early. I had a whim—you remember my whim about the song—a fancy that Ishould like to say my good-by here, where I said a good-by once before.”
“It is easily said,” answered Lisbeth, and held out one of her hands. “Good-by.”
He took it, with a pretense at a coolness as masterly as her own, but he could not keep it up. He gave way to some swift, passionate, inexplicable prompting, and in an instant had covered it with kisses, had even fiercely kissed her slender wrist.
She snatched it from his grasp, breathless with anger, forgetting her resolve to control herself.
“What do you mean?” she cried. “You are mad. How dare you?”
He drew back a step, confronting her defiantly.
“I do not know what I mean,” he answered, “unless, as you say, I am mad. I think I am mad; so, being a madman, I will not ask you to pardon me. It was a farewell. It is over now, however. Will you let me take your roses, and carry them to the house?”
She vouchsafed him no answer, but turned away, and left him to follow, if he chose. Her helplessness against him drove her fairly wild. Nothing she could say, or do, would ever wipe out the memory of those mad kisses. Heeither loved or despised her utterly; and remembering his manner toward Georgie, she could only conclude that he despised her, and had offered her a deadly insult. The blood shot into her cheeks, like a rush of fire, and her eyes blazed ominously.
“My dear Lisbeth,” bleated good little Miss Clarissa, the moment she saw her, “you have caught fresh cold, I am convinced. You are in a high fever.”
Fever, indeed! She had never been in such a fever in her life; but it was a fever of anger and humiliation.
“I think it probable,” she said, seriously, “that I am going to have measles, or scarlatina, Aunt Clarissa. Which would you prefer?”
Georgie came up stairs, long after she had shut herself in her room, to find her sitting by the open window, looking worn out and wretched.
“Lisbeth,” she ventured, “is it possible that youaregoing to be ill?”
Probably Georgie Esmond had never been so spoken to in her life, as she was when her dear Lisbeth turned upon her at this simple remark.
“Georgie, my dear,” she said, “if you askme such a question again, I believe I shall turn you out of the room, and lock the door.”
Georgie regarded her for a moment in mute amazement; but after that she managed to recover herself.
“I—I beg pardon, Lisbeth,” she faltered, and then discreetly turned her attention to the performance of her nightly toilet, preparatory to going to bed.
But in the morning, it was Lisbeth to whose share the meekness fell. Her mood had changed altogether, and she was so astoundingly humble, that Georgie was alarmed.
“You have more patience with me than I have with myself, Georgie,” she said, “or I should know it was not worth my while to say a word to you. Do have pity on me. I—well, I was out of sorts, or something. And I have such a horrible temper.”
Really, her demon might have departed from her that night. She showed no more temper; she became almost as amiable as a more commonplace young woman. She made so few caustic speeches, that the Misses Tregarthyn began to fear that her delicate health had affected her usual flow of spirits; and accordingly mourned over her in secret, not feeling it discreet to do so openly.
“She used to be so spirited,” sighed Miss Hetty, over her sewing, to Georgie. “Don’t you observe an alteration in her, my love? Sister Clarissa, and sister Millicent, and myself really do not know what to think. It would be such a comfort to us, if she could only be persuaded to see Dr. Puddifoot. He is such a dear man, and so extremely talented.”
“Because I have been trying to behave myself decently, they think I am ill,” said Lisbeth, smiling a little mournfully. “Just think how I must have treated them, Georgie. They are so used to my humors, that, if I am not making myself actively unpleasant, they fancy it is because I have not the strength to do it. If I were to snub Aunt Hetty, and snap at Aunt Clarissa, I believe they would shed tears of joy.”