A PASSING SOUL.
It was six weeks after this; life had been going on with little change,
when one morning Missy drew the reins of her brown horse before the
Rectory gate, and hurriedly springing out, ran down the path, leaving
the carriage at the roadside. She had a vail tied close across her
face; but she had no gloves, and her manner showed haste and excitement.
St. John was in his study. She ran in, exclaiming, as she opened the
door: "I wish you could come with me immediately, St. John. Get ready;
don't stop to ask questions. I will tell you while you're going."
"Mamma?" he asked, with a sudden contraction of the face, as he started
up and went across the room to get his hat.
"No! oh, thank Heaven! no. But don't stop for anything. Come; it is more
to me than you."
Then St. John knew that it was something that concerned the Andrews';
but generously made all the haste he could in following her. As he
stepped into the carriage after her, and took the reins from her hand,
he said:
"Well!" and turned to listen.
"It is Mrs. Andrews," she said, tremblingly. "She is dying; she may be
dead. I knew nothing of it till this morning, though her life has been
in danger through the night. Those cruel servants did not send for us,
and she has been in too much suffering to ask for any one. Now, she
scarcely knows me, but at first turned to me eagerly. She had something
to say; I don't know what. But she will never say it. Oh, St. John!
Death is so fearful--the silence. I can never hear that word, whatever
it is, of great or little moment."
"Her husband is with her?"
"That is the dreadful part. He is not at home. There is no one to do
anything. How they got the doctor is a wonder; except there is a brute
instinct, even in such creatures, that runs for the doctor. It was ages
before I could find the address of Mr. Andrews in town. Ages before I
could get any one off with the telegram. I came for you myself, because
I could trust no one else to get you quickly. Oh, St. John, do drive a
little faster!"
"And what am I to do, now that you have got me?" said her brother, in a
low tone, gazing before him at the horse, now almost on a gallop.
"Do? oh, St. John! save her! say a prayer for her! help her! What are
such as you to do but that? I didn't think you'd ask me. Oh, it is so
terrible to think of her poor soul. She is so unready; poor
thing--unless her sufferings will stand instead. _Don't_ you think they
may? Don't you think God might accept them instead of--of spirituality
and love for Him?"
"We're not set to judge, Missy," said her brother, soothingly. "Let us
hope all we can, and pray all we can. I wish that she were conscious, if
only for one moment."
"Well, pray for it," cried Missy, and then burst into tears. After a
moment, she turned passionately to him, and said: "St. John, I am afraid
it is partly for my own comfort I want her to speak and to be conscious
for one moment. I want to feel that I have a right to hope for her
eternal safety, and that I haven't been wasting all these weeks in
talking of things that didn't concern that, when I might have been
leading her to other thoughts. Oh, St. John, tell me, ought I to have
been talking about her soul all this time, when it was so hard? She
was--oh, I know you will understand me--she was so full of her
sufferings, and--well, of herself, that I couldn't easily talk about
what I knew in my heart she ought to be getting ready for. I didn't know
it was so near. Ah, I wasted the hours, and now her blood may be upon my
soul. St. John, there never was anybody so unready. It appalls me. I see
it all now. Poor, beautiful thing. She seems to be only made for earth.
Oh, the awe! St. John, if I had been a very good person, utterly holy, I
might have saved her, might I not? I should not have thought of anything
else, and by the force of my one purpose and desire, I could have
wakened her."
"Maybe not, my sister. Don't reproach yourself; only pray."
Missy twisted her hands together in her lap, and was motionless, as they
hurried on. In a moment more they were standing at the gate. As Missy
sprang out, little Jay met her, fretting and crying.
"Oh, why haven't they taken the children over to mamma, as I ordered?"
she cried; but there was no one to make excuse. "Go, go, my dear little
Jay," she pleaded. But Jay was all unstrung and unreasonable, feeling
the gloom and discomfort. "See," she cried, hurriedly kneeling down on
the grass beside him, "go to Mrs. Varian, and tell her you are come to
pay her a little visit; and tell her to let you go to my room, and on
the table there you will find a little package, tied up in a white
paper; and it is for you. I tied it up for you last night. Go see what
it is; you haven't any idea. It is something you will like so much!" Jay
was on his way before Missy got into the house.
It was a warm morning, close and obscure. One felt the oppression in
every nerve--an August suffocation. Low banks of threatening clouds lay
over the island that shut in the bay from the Sound, and over the West
Harbor. They boded and brooded, but would lie there for the many hours
of morning and midday that remained. Not a ripple moved the sullen
water; not a leaf stirred on the trees; the sun seemed hidden deep in
clouds of hot, still vapor. The house was all open, doors and windows,
gasping for breath. In the hall one or two servants stood aimlessly
about, listening at the foot of the stairs, or whispering together.
St. John followed his sister closely as she entered the house. The
servants made way for her, and they went quickly up the stairs. At the
door of the sick room they paused. Another woman, wringing her hands,
and listening with keen curiosity, stood gazing in. The room was in the
most confused state. The coffee-colored Alphonsine moved stolidly about,
and occasionally put a piece of furniture in its place, or removed a
garment thrown down in the haste and panic of the past night; but
standing still, more often, to gaze back at the bed. She crossed herself
often, in a mechanical manner, but looked more sullen than sympathetic.
There was a bath in the middle of the room, cloths and towels strewn
upon the floor beside it, mustard, a night-lamp flickering still in the
face of day, a bowl of ice, some brandy. The windows were thrown wide
open; the bed stood with its head near one--another one was opposite to
it. The light fell full upon the ghastly face of the suffering woman.
Beauty! had she ever been beautiful? "Like as a moth fretting a
garment," so had her anguish made her beauty to consume away. A ghastly
being--suffering, agonized, dying--wrestling with a destroying enemy!
Such conflicts cannot last long; the end was near.
As St. John and his sister entered the room, the doctor, who stood at
the head of the bed, was wiping the perspiration from his forehead and
glancing out of the window. He was troubled and worn out with the
night's work, and was watching eagerly for a brother physician who had
been summoned to his aid. He knew the new-comer could do no good, but he
could share the responsibility with him, and bring back the professional
atmosphere out of which he had been carried by the swift and terrible
progress of his patient's malady. Above all things, the doctor wished to
be professional and cool; and he knew he was neither in the midst of
this blundering crowd of servants, and in the sight of this fiercely
dying woman. He could have wished it all to be done over again. He had
lost his head, in a degree. He did not believe that anything could have
arrested the flight of life; all the same he wished he had known a
little more about the case; had taken the alarm quicker and sent for
other aid. He looked harassed and helpless, and very hot and tired. All
this St. John saw as he came in the room.
Missy looked questioningly at him, and then as he gave a gesture of
assent, came quickly to the side of the bed. She half knelt beside it,
and took the poor sufferer's hand in hers. The touch, perhaps, caused
her to open her eyes, and her lips moved. Then her glance, roving and
anguished, fell upon St. John. She lifted her hand with a sudden spasm
of life.
"A priest?" she said, huskily.
"Yes," said St. John, coming to her quietly.
"Then all of you go away--quick--I want to speak to him."
"There is no time to spare," said the doctor, as he passed St. John.
Missy followed him, and the servants followed her. She closed the door
and waited outside.
The servants seemed to be consoled by the presence of a priest; things
were taking the conventional death-bed turn. Even the doctor felt as if
the professional atmosphere were being restored in a degree. St. John,
indeed, had looked as if he knew what he was about, and had been calm in
the midst of the agitated and uncertain group, occupied himself,
perhaps, by but one thought. Young as he was, his sister and the doctor
and the servants shut him into the room with a feeling of much relief.
The servants nodded, and went their ways with apparent satisfaction. The
doctor threw himself into a chair in an adjoining room, and signified to
Miss Rothermel that he would rest till he was called. And she herself
knelt down beside an open window just outside the door, and waited, and
probably devoutly prayed for the passing soul making her tardy count
within.
She could not but speculate upon the interview. Now that the awful sense
of responsibility was lifted off her and shifted upon her brother's
shoulders, she felt more naturally and more humanly. She began to wonder
whether it had been to ask her for a priest that the dying woman had
struggled when she first saw her that morning. She was almost sure it
was, for she had clutched at St. John with such eagerness. It was
probable she did not know him and did not associate him with Missy. His
marked dress had been his passport. And Missy really did not know what
her friend's creed was. It seemed probable she had been a Roman
Catholic, but had dropped her form of faith in holiday times of youth
and possible wrong doing, and had never had grace to resume that, or any
other in the weary days of illness--unprofitable so long as they did not
threaten death. But now death was at the door, and she had clutched at
the hem of a priest's garment. So, thought Missy, it is real when it
comes to facts; for what fact so real as death? Everything else seemed
phantom-dim when she thought of that face upon the pillow, with the
wide-open window shedding all the gray morning's light upon it.
The moments passed; the still, dull, heavy air crept in at the window
upon which Missy bowed her head; the leaves scarcely stirred upon the
trees that stood up close beside it; a languid bird or two twittered an
occasional smothered note. There were few household sounds. The
servants, though released from their futile watching, did not resume
their household work. Missy smelt the evil odor of the Frenchman's
cigar, and was ashamed to find it vexed her, even at such a moment as
this; she braced herself to endure the "Fille de Mme. Angot," if that
should follow in a low whistle from under the trees. But it did not. The
Frenchman had that much respect for what was going on within.
At last! There was a stir--a moan, audible even through the door, and
Missy started to her feet, and signalled the doctor, who had heard it,
too. Her brother opened the door and admitted them. But what a ghastly
face was his; Missy started.
He turned back to the bed, and kneeling, read the commendatory prayer.
"Through the grave and gate of death,
Now the faint soul travaileth."
Ah, God help her; it is over. He has brought to pass His act, His
strange act, and only death lies there, senseless, dull death,
corruptible, animal, earthy, where but a moment before a soul of parts
and passions, had been chained.
Missy, new to death-beds, got up from her knees at last, weeping and
awed, and, laying her hand on her brother's, said, "Come away, St. John,
you look so ill."
St. John arose and followed her, going to the room and sinking into the
chair lately occupied by the doctor. He looked ill indeed, but his
sister could offer him no comfort; quiet, and to be left alone was all
he asked of her. At this moment the doctor summoned in consultation
appeared; both the professional men went professionally into the chamber
of death, and Missy, clasping the inert hand of Gabrielle, who,
whimpering, had refused to go up stairs, went sorrowfully home with the
child, feeling that she had no more to do in the house of death that
day.
St. John came home in an hour or two. Mr. Andrews had not yet arrived.
Everything that could be done without him had, under the direction of
St. John and the doctor, been done. The house was quiet and in order, he
said. It was almost certain that Mr. Andrews would arrive in the next
train; the carriage was waiting at the depot for him, though no telegram
had come. St. John threw himself on the sofa, and seemed again to want
quiet, so his sister left him, and took the children to her own room. It
was so close in the house, and they were so restless, that after a while
she took them out upon the lawn. There was no sun, and just a cool air,
though no breeze, creeping in from the water. It was comparatively easy
to amuse them there, or rather, to let them amuse themselves. Gabrielle
was inquisitive and fretful, but little Jay seemed to feel languid and
tired by the morning's heat, and crept upon her lap at last and went to
sleep.
Missy, sitting in the deep shade of the trees near the beech gate,
soothed by the quiet, and worn with the morning's excitement, almost
slept herself. She had gone over many times in imagination the arrival
of the husband, and his first moment at the bedside of his dead wife.
She felt sure all this had now taken place, though she was too far from
the house to hear the arrival of the carriage from the depot. She
wondered whether he would send in for the children at once, or whether
he would be glad they were away; or whether he would think of them at
all. She was glad to remember she had no duty in the matter, and that
she did not have to see him, and it was rather a comfort to her to feel
she did not know the exact moment at which he was going through the
terrible scene, and feeling the first anguish of remorse. She kissed
Jay's tawny head, and with her arms around him, finally slept, leaning
back in the great chair. Gabrielle at first played at her feet idly,
then went down to the beach, and amused herself in the sand, but it was
hot, and she came back to the shade, and, lying on the rug at Missy's
feet, slept too.
A small steam yacht, meanwhile, had come into the harbor, had put off a
small boat, which was even now landing a gentleman near the boat-house
of the Andrews' place. The boat returned to the yacht; the gentleman set
down his bag on the steps of the boat-house, and looked around. All was
quiet; no one seemed moving at either of the two houses. Certainly it
was not a day to move if you could help it. The only hope was that those
dark clouds in the west would move, and make some change in the stagnant
state of things. The gentleman took off his straw hat and fanned himself
and walked slowly forward, then, catching sight of the group under the
trees, with something like a smile, turned back and approached them. He
stood looking down upon them, before any of them moved. Certainly, a
pretty enough group. Gabrielle was sleeping, face forward, on her arms,
a graceful figure, on the dark rug. Missy, with her soft, pretty hair
tumbled, and a flush on her cheek, lay nearly at full length in the
stretched-out sleepy chair, her light dress swept upon the grass, and
exposing one small and perfect foot with a gossamer stocking and a
darling high-heeled low-cut shoe. And Jay, flushed and hot, with his
tawny curls against her breast, and one brown hand in hers, lay across
her lap; her other hand, very white by contrast, holding the brown bare
legs in a protecting way; some picture-books, and a broad hat or two lay
upon the grass beside them. There was something in the sight that seemed
to move more than the spectator's admiration; but whatever emotion it
was, was quickly dispelled, and commonplace greeting and pleasure came
back into his face, as Gabrielle, aroused, got up with a cry of:
"Why, papa! where did you come from? I--I guess I was asleep."
Missy, with a start, sat up, bewildered. She had been dreaming, perhaps,
of the scene in the upper room in the house next door, which haunted her
imagination. And here she was, face to face with the man over whose
remorse she rather gloated, and it would be difficult to say how any one
could look less remorseful than he looked now. Certainly, more genial
and pleasant than she had ever seen him look before. She felt that she
must have been dreaming all the occurrences of the morning. Jay fretted
and refused to wake. Her dress was wet where his hot little head had
been lying; he threw his arm up over her neck and nestled back.
"I--we--what train--have you just come?" she stammered, trying to know
what she was talking of, and to believe that there was no dead face on
the pillow up-stairs.
"I did not come on a train, but in a yacht," he answered, putting his
arms around Gabby's shoulders, and holding her little hands in his. "We
started last night. Some friends of mine are on a cruise, and persuaded
me to let them bring me here. But an accident to the machinery kept us
over-night at our moorings, and interminable arrangements for the cruise
put us back this morning. We have had a hot day of it on the Sound, and
are just arrived. See, Gabrielle, there goes the yacht out of the mouth
of the harbor. It is a pity we can't run up a flag from the boat-house;
but it is too hot for exertion, and I suppose all the servants are
asleep."
"Then you haven't--" faltered Missy, "you--that is--you have not been to
the house--"
"No," said Mr. Andrews, looking at her as if he did not mean to be
surprised at anything she might say or do. "No, I am just on shore, and
unexpected at home. I hope you are quite well, Miss Rothermel;" for
Missy was turning very pale. "I am afraid that boy is too heavy for you;
let me take him."
Missy was struggling to get up, and Jay was fighting to keep his place,
and not to be disturbed.
"Let me take him. Jay, be quiet. What do you mean by this, my boy? Come
to me at once."
"No, oh no!" said Missy, regaining her feet, and holding the boy in her
arms. He put his damp curls down on her shoulder, and both arms around
her neck, and with sleepy, half-shut, obstinate eyes, looked down upon
the ground, and up upon his father.
Gabrielle, seeing the situation, said, amazed: "_Don't_ you know, papa?"
and then stopped suddenly, and looked frightened.
"Hush, Gabrielle," cried Missy, trembling. For Gabby's heartlessness
would be a cruel medium through which to communicate the news.
"There is some trouble?" said Mr. Andrews, quietly, looking from one to
the other. "Do not be afraid to tell me."
"Let us go up to the house," said Missy, hurriedly, taking a few steps
forward with her heavy burden. Mr. Andrews walked silently beside her,
looking upon the ground, with an expression not very different from the
one he wore habitually, though very different from the one he had just
been wearing. Gabby hung behind, looking askance at the two before her,
with mingled curiosity and apprehension in her face.
"You need not be afraid to tell me," he said, as they walked on. "Has
anything happened? I am quite unprepared, but I would rather know. I
suppose I have been telegraphed, if I was needed--"
"I sent the telegrams to your office," said Missy; "the first one at
nine this morning. My brother sent the last one. The carriage has been
at every train all day."
"It was a strange mischance. They did not know at the office that I was
going home in the yacht."
"The servants were so heedless, and they did not even send for us."
"You forget, I do not know," said Mr. Andrews, in a controlled voice, as
she paused, in walking as well as in speaking. For her agitation, and
the weight of the sleeping child together, made her tremble so that she
stopped, and leaned against a linden tree on the lawn, which they were
passing.
"Oh, it is hard that it should come upon me," cried Missy desperately,
as she looked at him with a strange pair of eyes, leaning against the
tree, very white and trembling, and holding the boy to her breast.
"Yes; it is hard," said her companion, "for I know it must be something
very painful to move you so. I will go to my house and learn about it
there. Come, Gabrielle; will you come with me, child?"
"Oh, stay," cried Missy, as he stretched out his hand to the little
girl, and was going away without her, as she began to cry and hang back,
taking hold of Missy's dress. "It will be hard to hear it there--from
servants. It is the worst news any one could hear. How can I tell you?
The poor little children, they are left--alone--to you."
And, bursting into tears, she sunk down beside Gabrielle on the grass,
and held her and Jay in one embrace. There was a silence but for the
sobs of Gabrielle, for Missy's tears were silent after the first burst;
they were raining now on Jay's head, and she kissed his forehead again
and again. "I have told you very badly," she said brokenly, after a
moment. "I hoped you would not hear it all at once; but it was not my
fault."
There was no answer, and she went on. "The illness was so sudden and
terrible, and there was no hope, after we knew of it. I feel so dazed
and tired I hardly know what to tell you of it. It is several hours
since--since all was over. I don't suppose anything could have been done
to make it different; but it must be so dreadful to you to think you
were not here. Oh, I don't know at all how you can bear it."
She looked up at him as she said this. He stood perfectly still and
upright before her, his face paler, perhaps, than usual, hard and rigid.
But whether he was hearing what she said, and weighing it critically, or
whether he did not hear or comprehend, she could not tell. There was no
change of expression, no emotion in eye or mouth to enlighten her. She
had, in her pity for him, and her agitation at being the one to
communicate the evil tidings, forgotten the rancor that she bore him,
and the remorse that she had wished he might endure. These feelings
began sharply to awaken, as she glanced at him. She felt her tears burn
her cheeks, looking at his unmoistened eyes. She put down Jay upon his
feet, and disengaging herself from Gabrielle, stood up, keeping Jay's
hand in hers.
"My brother will tell you all the rest," she said, slowly moving on,
leading the children. Mr. Andrews mechanically followed her, looking
upon the ground. Missy's heart beat fast; she held the children tight by
the hand; it seemed to her that this was worse than all the rest. She
was not much used to tragedy, and had never had to tell a man the wife
was dead, whom he was expecting to meet within five minutes.
The men and women she had known had loved each other, and lived happily
together, in a measure. She was new to this sort of experience. She was
thrilling with the indignation that very young persons feel when their
ideal anything is overthrown. She was, practically, in the matter of
ideals, a very young person, though she was twenty-eight.
They were very near the house now. A few more steps and they would be at
the side door that led into the summer parlor. There was a total
silence, broken by Jay's whimpering, "I don't want to go home with papa;
I want to stay with you to-night."
Gabby, who didn't have any more cheerful recollection of home to-day
than he, chimed in a petition to stay. She thought she would rather look
over aunt Harriet's boxes, and be a little scolded, than go home to the
ejaculations and whisperings of the servants, and have to pass That
Room. This was about the depth of her grief; but she whimpered and
wanted to stay. When they reached the steps that led up to the door,
Missy paused and turned to Mr. Andrews, who was just behind her.
"Shall I keep the children?" she said, facing him, her cheeks flushed, a
child grasping each hand.
"Yes--if you will--if you will be so kind," he said. She had hoped his
voice would be shaken, would show agitation. But it did not. It was
rather low, but perfectly controlled, and he knew what he was saying. He
"remembered his manners." He was collected enough to be polite; "if you
will be so kind."
"Come then, children," she said, trembling all over, voice included, as
she went up the steps. He walked away without any further speech.
Leaving the children in the summer-parlor, she ran through the house to
one of the front windows, and pushing open a little the blind, sat down
palpitating and watched him going down to the gate. He walked slowly,
but his step was steady. He followed the road, and did not walk across
the grass, like a man who does not think what he is doing. When he
reached the gate, he did not turn to the right towards his own house, to
the gate of which a few steps more would have brought him, but he walked
up the road, with his head down, as if pondering something. Presently,
however, he turned and came back, passed the Varians' gate, and went on
into his own. And then Missy lost sight of him among the trees that
stood between the two houses. She threw herself upon a sofa, and pressed
her hands before her eyes, as she thought of that broken, pain-strained
figure, rigid on the bed up-stairs. And if he did not cry for his
coldness and cruelty, she did, till her head and her eyes ached.
That night, after Missy had put the children to bed in her own room, as
she went down stairs, she heard St. John sending a servant in to ask
Mr. Andrews if he would see him for a few moments.
"St. John," she exclaimed, in a low voice, joining him. "Why do you send
in? It is his place to send for you. I would not do it, really. I--I
hate the man. I told him you would tell him everything, and he has been
here four hours at least, and has never sent for you. I don't believe he
wants to hear anything. I have no doubt he has had a good dinner and is
reading the paper. May be he will ask you to join him with a cigar."
"Don't be uncharitable, Missy," said her brother, walking up and down
the room.
"But why do you send?" persisted his sister. "He doesn't want to see
you, or he would have sent."
"But I want to see him. So, Missy, don't let us talk about it any more."
It was evident to his sister that St. John did not anticipate the
meeting with much pleasure. He was a little restless, for him, till the
servant came back with a message, to the effect that Mr. Andrews would
be very glad to see Mr. Varian at once, if he were at liberty to come.
St. John looked rather pale as he kissed his sister good-night (for he
was not coming back, but going directly home to the rectory), and she
felt that his hand was cold.
"He is young for such experiences," she said to her mother, as she sat
down beside her sofa in the summer twilight.
"He doesn't seem young to me any longer," returned her mother.
"A few days such as this would make us all old," said Missy, with a
sigh, leaning her face down on her mother's arm. "Mamma, I am sure this
interview is very painful to St. John. I am sure he has been charged
with something to say to her husband, _by that poor soul_. How I wish it
weren't wrong to ask him what it was. But,"--with a sigh--"I suppose we
shall never know."
"Never, Missy. But we can be charitable. And when you are my age, my
child, you will be afraid to judge any one, and will distrust the sight
of your own eyes."
At this moment Miss Varian came lumbering into the room, leaning on the
arm of Goneril.
"I suppose," she said, not hearing the low voices, "that Missy is at her
nursery duties yet. Are you here, Dorla? I should think she might
remember that you might sometimes be a little lonely, while she is busy
in her new vocation."
Missy scorned to answer, but her mother said pleasantly: "Oh, she is
here; her babies have been asleep some time."
"I'm not surprised. I don't believe Gabby's grief has kept her awake.
That child has a heart like a pebble, small and hard. As to little Jay,
he has the constitution and the endowments of a rat terrier, nothing
beyond. I don't believe he ever will amount to anything more than a
good, sturdy little animal."
"He will amount to a big animal, I suppose, if he lives long enough,"
said Missy, with a sharp intonation of contempt.
"Well, not very, if he copies his father. Gabby has all the cleverness.
I should call Jay a dull child, as far as I can judge; dull of
intellect, but so strong and well that it gives him a certain force."
"Aunt Harriet!" cried Missy, impatiently, "can't you leave even
children alone? What have those poor little morsels done to you, that
you should defame them so?"
"Done? Oh, nothing, but waked me up from my nap this afternoon. And, you
know, deprived me and your mother of much of your soothing society for
the past two months."
"I haven't begrudged Missy to them," said her mother, affectionately,
drawing Missy's hand around her neck in the dimness. "I think the poor
little things have needed a friend for a long while, and, alas, they
need one now."
"It's my impression they're no worse off to-day than they were
yesterday. There is such a thing as gaining by a loss."
Mrs. Varian put her hand over Missy's mouth; Miss Varian, annoyed by not
being answered, went on with added sharpness:
"Goneril says the servants tell her all sorts of stories about the state
of things between master and mistress in the house next door. I am
afraid the poor man isn't to blame for snubbing her as he has done. They
say she--"
"Oh, my dear Harriet," said Mrs. Varian, keeping her hand on Missy's
lips, "don't you think it is a pity to be influenced by servants. It is
difficult enough to tell the truth ourselves, and keep it intact when it
goes through many hands; and I don't think that the ill-educated and
often unprincipled people who serve us, are able at all to judge of
character, and to convey facts correctly; do you? I don't doubt
two-thirds of the gossip among our servants is without foundation.
Imagine Goneril describing an interview between us; to begin with, she
would scarcely understand what we said, if we talked of anything but the
most commonplace things. She would think we quarreled, if we differed
about the characters in a novel."
"Goneril! She would not only misunderstand, but she would misstate with
premeditation and malice. That woman--" And on that perennial grievance,
the lady's wrath was turned, as her sister-in-law meant it should be,
and Missy's feelings were spared. She kissed her mother's hand secretly,
and whispered "thank you."