"Of course not, Arthur. What difference could it make? Where could we
go?"
When Arthur spoke again, which he did not do for a moment, his tone
showed how much he was relieved by his sister's words. It was very
gentle and tender too, Graeme noticed.
"Of course not. I was quite sure this would make no change. Rather
than my sisters should be made unhappy by my--by this affair--I would go
no further in it. My engagement should be at an end."
"Hush, Arthur! It is too late to say that now."
"But I was quite sure you would see it in the right way. You always do,
Graeme. It was not my thought that you would do otherwise. And it will
only be a new sister, another Rosie to care for, and to love, Graeme. I
know you will be such a sister to my wife, as you have ever been to Rose
and to us all."
Graeme pressed the hand that Arthur laid on hers, but she could not
speak. "If it had been any one else but that pretty, vain child,"
thought she. She almost fancied she had spoken her thought aloud, when
Arthur said,--
"You must not be hard on her, Graeme. You do not know her yet. She is
not so wise as you are, perhaps, but she is a gentle, yielding little
thing; and removed from her stepmother's influence and placed under
yours, she will become in time all that you could desire."
She would have given much to be able to respond heartily and cheerfully
to his appeal, but she could not. Her heart refused to dictate hopeful
words, and her tongue could not have uttered them. She sat silent and
grave while her brother was speaking, and when he ceased she hardly knew
whether she were glad or not, to perceive that, absorbed in his own
thoughts, he did not seem to notice her silence or miss her sympathy.
That night Graeme's head pressed a sleepless pillow, and among her many,
many thoughts there were few that were not sad. Her brother was her
ideal of manly excellence and wisdom, and no exercise of charity on her
part could make the bride that he had chosen seem other than weak,
frivolous, vain. She shrank heartsick from the contemplation of the
future, repeating rather in sorrow and wonder, than in anger, "How could
he be so blind, so mad?" To her it was incomprehensible, that with his
eyes open he could have placed his happiness in the keeping of one who
had been brought up with no fear of God before her eyes--one whose
highest wisdom did not go beyond a knowledge of the paltry fashions and
fancies of the world. He might dream, of happiness now, but how sad
would be the wakening.
If there rose in her heart a feeling of anger or jealousy against her
brother's choice, if ever there came a fear, that the love of years
might come to seem of little worth beside the love of a day, it was not
till afterwards. None of these mingled with the bitter sadness and
compassion of that night. Her brother's doubtful future, the mistake he
had made, and the disappointment that must follow, the change that might
be wrought in his character as they went on; all these came and went,
chasing each other through her mind, till the power of thought was well
nigh lost. It was a miserable night to her, but out of the chaos of
doubts and fears and anxieties, she brought one clear intent, one firm
determination. She repeated it to herself as she rose from her sister's
side in the dawn of the dreary autumn morning, she repeated it as part
of her tearful prayer, entreating for wisdom and strength to keep the
vow she vowed, that whatever changes or disappointments or sorrows might
darken her brother's future, he should find her love and trust unchanged
for ever.