Next morning Katie appeared at the old castle before Lilias had
woke out of her first deep sleep. They had gone to bed after all,
notwithstanding that Margaret pronounced it impossible, and even the
two sisters were an hour late for breakfast. But it was now noon, and
Lilias' windows had not yet been opened. Katie, who was, in comparison,
well used to dissipation, contemplated her friend's privileges with
admiration.
"Mamma will always make me come down to breakfast," she said,
plaintively. "She just never minds. She says balls are all very well if
they are never supposed to interfere with next day; and the consequence
is I just feel as if I were boiled," said Katie.
"You are looking just as usual," said Miss Margaret.
Katie pouted a little at this re-assuring statement, but afterwards
recovered, and begged leave to be allowed to carry up the cup of tea
which was being prepared for the darling of the house.
"You may come with me," said Miss Jean; "but I must go myself, for I am
afraid she may have got a cold after all the exposure last night."
Katie went upstairs after Miss Jean, with various reflections upon the
happiness of Lilias.
"I was exposed just the same. Oh! much more," cried Katie to herself,
"but nobody thinks I can ever take cold."
What differences there were between one girl and another; Mrs. Stormont
would give her little finger if Philip would marry Lilias, and would
not hear of Katie, though she was Philip's choice. These things were
inscrutable. And the luxury of Lilias' room, the tray set down by her
bed-side, the soft caution of the awakening, and Miss Jean's low tones,
"I have brought you your breakfast, Lilias." Katie thought of her own
case, called at seven as usual, in the room she shared with two little
sisters, plagued by half a dozen appeals. "Oh, will you tie my hair,
Katie! Oh, will you fasten my frock!" when her eyes were scarcely open.
This it is to be an only child, an heiress, a lady of high degree. And,
when Lilias opened her eyes and saw Katie beside her, her look of alarm
was unquestionable. She jumped up from among her pillows.
"Is anything wrong?" she said.
"I just came," said Katie, "to talk over the ball. I thought you would
want to talk it all over. When it is your first ball, it is not like
any other. But we got home quite safe, and opened the door and were in
bed without waking anyone. And I was up to breakfast as usual," Katie
said.
"Lilias is not used to such late hours," said Miss Jean. "She never was
up so late in all her life, and neither Margaret nor I have seen the
early morning light like that for years--except in cases of sickness
and watching, which is very different. It was a great deal finer than
the ball, though at your age perhaps it is not to be expected that you
should think so."
Katie opened her eyes wide, and gave Miss Jean a puzzled look. To be
sure there were many agitations in her little soul that did not disturb
a middle-aged existence. She was anxious to get rid of the elderly
sister to pour out her heart to the young one who could understand her.
"Don't you think it was a very nice ball?" said Katie. "I never sat
down once, and it was not too crowded, either. Oh! I like when you
have no more room than just enough to get along. I don't mind a crowd.
It makes you feel it's a real ball, and not just a little dance. Mr.
Murray dances beautifully. Didn't you think so, Lilias? I saw you,
though you refused so many people; and you danced three times with
him, including----" Here Katie paused, with a blush and a sudden
recollection of the presence of Miss Jean.
"Did I?" cried Lilias, with a look of great surprise. "I did not think
of it. I suppose that is what you call wrong, too, to dance with some
one that is nice to dance with, instead of just taking anyone that
comes?"
Lilias was somewhat proud of having carried her point. Her evening had
been triumphant, in spite of her daring exercise of her right of choice.
"My dear," said Miss Jean, mildly, "everything depends upon the meaning
you have. The like of Mr. Murray will never harm you; he is not
thinking of any nonsense. And he is a stranger; he has nobody belonging
to him."
Katie gave a little cough of dissent. It was all that she permitted
herself. And Miss Jean did not leave the room till Lilias had taken,
which she was nothing loth to do, the dainty little breakfast that her
sister had brought her. This represented the very climax of luxury to
both the girls, and Jean looked on benignant with a pleasure in every
morsel her little sister consumed, which the most exquisite repast
could not have given her.
"Now I will leave you to talk about your dances," she said; "but,
Lilias, Margaret will like you to be up soon, and ready for your
reading. We like you to have a good sleep in the morning, but not
to be idle all day." She gave them a tender smile as she went away.
"Now you will just chatter nonsense--like two birds in a bush," she
said. She could remember faintly, from her old girlish experiences,
the talk about this quadrille and that country dance, for waltzes had
scarcely penetrated into the country in Miss Jean's day, and about
the new figures, and the new steps, and how So-and-so was a stupid
partner, and So-and-so an amusing one. She thought she knew exactly
the sweet nonsense they would rush into, like two birds, she said, in
the headlong twitter of domestic intercourse crowding their notes and
experiences together, as the birds had done that morning, till the
listeners felt as if they were eavesdropping. It would be like that,
not much reason in it, one scarcely stopping to listen to the other,
each full of her own reminiscences, a sort of delightful gibberish--but
so sweet!
Instead of this, Katie ran to the doors, when Miss Jean departed, to
see that they were all closed, and then rushed back and took her seat
upon the bed, where Lilias was sitting up among her pillows, her fair
locks streaming about her shoulders.
"Oh, I have so much to say to you, Lilias," Katie cried, and threw
herself upon her friend and kissed her. "I should have hated to think
of last night if it hadn't been for you. Oh! Lilias, you are just going
to be our salvation."
"How can that be?" said Lilias. "I did not mean anything. Oh! Katie,
never think about that any more. It was just a silly impulse--I did not
mean it."
"But when I ask you," said Katie--"and when you know it will be so
important for Phil and me--and when you see the power you have, and
that only you can do it--oh! Lilias, you will not turn your back upon
me--you will stand our friend?"
"I should not turn my back on anyone," said Lilias; "but what am I to
do, and how can I stand your friend? Just let me alone, Katie, please.
I am too ignorant--I don't know about these sort of things. Philip and
you should not be like that when everybody objects. I am sure I would
not vex Margaret and Jean, not for any man."
"That is all you know," said Katie, shaking her head. "That just means
that you do not know the man. When your time comes, you will just carry
on like the rest. And nobody said a word about Philip and me till it
was too late. We were let to be together as much as we liked; he was
for ever at the manse, and nobody said a word. If mamma was against it,
she might have told me; but just to step in at the last and say, 'We'll
not allow it,' and never a word of warning before, that is cruel,"
Katie said, with an angry flash from her eyes. "And now they think they
can just part us as if we were two sticks!"
Lilias could not deny that there was reason in what was thus said.
"But you should have told your mother, Katie, before----"
"Told my mother!--do you think you can tell your mother all the
nonsense that is said to you? Most part of it is just nonsense. I would
think shame. When they speak of love and things like that, either you
laugh, or--or--you put faith in it," Katie said. "It would not be fair
to tell when you just laugh, and, when you believe, you think shame."
Katie's little countenance, flushing and glowing, her little head
shaken from time to time as she delivered these words of wisdom, her
eyes full of many experiences, gave weight to what she said.
"But, Katie, you are younger than I am," said Lilias, "and where did
you find out all that? It is Latin to me."
"It is being in the world," said Katie, with great gravity. "You see,
I am the eldest, and I was brought out very early, perhaps too early,
but mamma did not think so. She always said, 'Her sisters will just be
on her heels before we know where we are,' and that was how it was. But
I am not so young--I am seventeen," said Katie, drawing herself up with
the air of a woman of thirty. Her own private opinion was that a woman
of thirty was approaching decrepitude, and no longer likely to interest
herself in matters of the heart.
"I shall not be eighteen till August, and your birthday is----"
"Oh, what does it matter about a month or so?" said Katie. "I am far,
far older than you are: and if I were only six, that does not make
it any easier; for here is Philip and me that they are wanting to
separate, and we will never, never give each other up. And, Lilias,"
she added, dropping into tender confidence after this little outburst,
"there is nobody that we put our faith in but you."
Lilias turned her head away from her friend. She was touched by the
appeal, and she felt, as every girl would feel, a thrill of pleasure
in being believed in, and in the idea of being able to help. Who does
not like to be a guardian angel, the only deliverer possible. But along
with this there came a shiver of alarm. How could she undertake such an
office, and what would Margaret say?
"I told you in the ferry boat," said Katie, "but you were sleepy."
"Me! sleepy! when it was all so beautiful!"
"When you are up all night," said the young philosopher, "you never
heed whether it is beautiful or not. But, any way, you did not
understand. You were terrified, and then you thought it would bring you
into trouble, and then----"
"I never thought it would bring me into trouble," cried Lilias,
indignant. "I was not thinking of myself, and I was no more sleepy--!
But to do something that is not true, to pretend--to cheat, for it
would be cheating----"
"It would be nothing of the kind," said Katie, indignantly. "Do you
think I'm asking you to go to Mrs. Stormont and tell her that Philip
is in love with you? Oh! Lilias, don't be angry. It's just this. Let
him come here sometimes--Miss Margaret would not mind; and then if you
will come out with me for a walk in the afternoons? Oh! Lilias, it is
not so much to do for a friend. It is quite natural that, when he sees
you much, he should like you best. If he had never come to our house
when he did, if he had never met me, if there had been no Katie at
all," said the girl, with pathos; "of course it would have been you
that Philip would have thought of. There would never have been another
fancy in his mind; he would have loved you, and all would have gone
well. Oh! what a pity," she cried, "what a pity that ever, ever there
was a Katie at all!"
"You are the silliest little thing in the world," cried Lilias,
starting up in her white night-dress, with her hair floating about her.
"All would have gone well? Oh! you think I would have taken Mr. Philip
Stormont? You think Margaret would have let me? Was there nothing to do
but for him to take a fancy to me? Oh! that is just too much, Katie;
that is more than I can put up with," she cried, with a spring on the
floor. "Will you go away, please, and let me get up?"
Katie was prudent, though she was offended, and she was determined to
gain her point.
"I will go into the library and wait there," she said. "But oh! Lilias,
why will you be so angry with me?"
"I am not angry, if you would not speak such nonsense," Lilias cried.
"I will not speak nonsense, I will say nothing to displease you; but
oh! Lilias, what will happen to me if you turn your back upon me?" said
the girl.
She went away so humbly, with such deprecating looks, that Lilias not
only felt her anger evaporate, but took herself severely to task for
her sharpness with poor little Katie.
"After all, she is a whole year younger than me, whatever she says,"
Lilias said, sagely, to herself, "and a year makes a great difference
at our age." Then her heart softened to Katie; if anything she could
do would smooth over her poor little friend's troubles, what a
hard-hearted girl she would be to deny it--"Me that does nothing for
anybody, and everybody so good to me!" Lilias said in her heart. It
began to seem to her a kind of duty to take upon her the task Katie
proposed. If it did _them_ good, it would do nobody harm. If Margaret
got a fright and thought that she--she, Lilias Murray of Murkley--was
going to fix her choice upon Philip Stormont, it would serve Margaret
right for entertaining such an unworthy idea. "Me!" Lilias cried,
with a smile of profound disdain. But for Katie it was all very well.
For Katie it was entirely unobjectionable. Philip was just the right
person for her, and she for him. Lilias made as short work of any
romantic pretensions which the Stormonts might put forth as her sister
could have done. What were they, to set up for being superior to the
minister's daughter? The Setons were well born, for anything Lilias
knew to the contrary, and the others were but small lairds, not great
persons. Perhaps Mrs. Stormont's favourite claim upon her as one who
might have been her mother had irritated the temper of the daughter
of Lady Lilias Murray. She had a scorn of the pretensions of the
smaller family. Katie was "just as good," she declared to herself. All
this process of thought was going on while Lilias went through the
various processes of her toilet. When she went into the book-room,
which was sacred to her studies, and found Katie there, she gave her
little friend a condescending kiss, though she did not say much. And
Katie, who was very quick-witted, understood. She did not tease her
benefactress with questions. She was ready to accept her protection
without forcing it into words.
And no doubt, in the days that followed, Margaret and Jean were much
perplexed, it might even be said distressed. Philip Stormont began to
pay them visits with a wearisome pertinacity. When he came he had not
much to say; he informed them about the weather, that it was a fine day
or a bad day, that the glass was falling, that the dew had been heavy
last night, with many other very interesting scraps of information.
But, when he had exhausted this subject, he fell to sucking the top of
his cane. He was very attentive when anyone else spoke, especially Miss
Margaret, and he looked at Lilias, perhaps as Katie had instructed him
to look, with a gaze which indeed was more like anxiety than anything
else, but which might do duty as admiration and interest with those
who did not know the difference. To the outside spectator, who knew
nothing about the conspiracy entered into by these young people, it
would indeed have appeared very evident that Philip had been converted
to his mother's opinion by the apparition of Lilias at the ball. And
indeed the beauty of Lilias, like her position, was so much superior to
that of Katie that nobody could have been surprised at the young man's
change of opinion.
It might have been thought very natural too, that, after his early
flirtations with the minister's daughter, whose mother brought her
far too much forward, his fancy should have turned legitimately in a
higher direction as his taste improved. Mrs. Stormont heard of her
son's proceedings with the liveliest delight, giving God thanks indeed,
poor lady, in her deceived heart that He had turned her boy's thoughts
in the right direction, and given her this comfort when she needed it
most. And she also applauded somewhat her own cleverness in having seen
the right means for so desirable an end, and secured the _début_ of
Lilias at Philip's ball, an event which connected their names, and no
doubt would make them feel themselves more or less bound to each other.
Mrs. Stormont felt that little Katie was routed horse and foot, and
also that poor Mrs. Seton, whom she considered a designing woman and
manœuvring mother (entirely oblivious of her own gifts of that kind),
was discomfited and thrown out, a thought almost as sweet to her mind
as that of Philip's deliverance. And it would be wrong to say that Mrs.
Seton herself did not feel a certain sense of defeat. When she met
Philip going up the village towards the castle, the smile and banter
with which she greeted him were bitter-sweet.
"I am really glad to see that you are finding some entertainment at
Murkley," she would say. "I have so often been sorry for you with
nothing to occupy you. Yes, yes, whatever women may think, a young man
wants something to amuse him; and the ladies at the castle are most
entertaining. Miss Margaret has just an uncommon judgment, and dear
Miss Jean, we are all fond of her; and as for Lilias, that speaks for
itself. Yes, yes, Mr. Philip, with a face like that, there is nothing
more to say."
Philip listened to all this with wonderful composure. He secretly
chuckled now and then at the ease with which everybody was taken
in. "Even her own mother," he said to himself, with the greatest
admiration of his Katie. Deception looks like a high-art to the simple
intelligence when it is exercised to his own advantage, and even the
highest moralist winks at the artifices with which a couple of young
people contrive to conceal their courtship. It is supposed that the
supreme necessity of the end to be obtained justifies such means: at
least that would seem to be the original cause of such a universal
condonation of offence.
Miss Margaret did not share Mrs. Stormont's sentiments. She had
always been afraid of this long-leggit lad. He was just the kind of
well-grown, well-looking production of creation that might take a
young girl's eye, she felt, before she had seen anything better: and
she blamed herself as much for permitting the ball as Philip's mother
applauded herself for contriving it. Margaret was very far from happy
at this period. The more Philip talked about the weather, and the more
minute were the observations he made about the glass rising, or the
dew falling, the more she looked at him, with a growing consternation,
wondering if it were possible that Lilias could be attracted by such
qualities as he exhibited.
"He is just a gomeril," she said, indignantly.
"Indeed, Margaret," Jean would say, "he is very personable, there is no
denying that."
"He is just a great gowk," growing in vehemence, Miss Margaret said.
But, in fact, her milder, less impassioned statement was, after all,
the true one. His chief quality was that he was a long-leggit lad, a
fine specimen of rural manhood. There was nothing wrong, or undersized,
or ill-developed about him. He had brain enough for his needs. He was
far from being without sense. He had a very friendly regard for his
neighbours, and would not have harmed them for the world. There was
nothing against him; but then Lilias was the apple of the eye to these
two ladies, who were entirely visionary in their ambition for her,
and in all the hopes they had set on her head. That she should make a
premature choice of one of whom all that could be said was, that there
was nothing against him, was a terrible humiliation to all their plans
and thoughts.
And in the afternoons, while July lingered out, with its warm days and
rosy sunsets, the month without frost, the genial heart of the year,
Lilias' walks were invariably accompanied by Katie, who, liberated as
she was from visitors at home by Philip's desertion, ran in and out of
the castle at all hours, and was the constant attendant of her friend.
Philip would join them in their walks, which were always confined to
the park, almost every day, and Lilias, at one moment or other, would
generally stroll off by herself to leave them free. She got a habit
of haunting New Murkley very much during these afternoon walks. She
would wander round and round it, studying every corner, returning to
all her dreams on the subject, peopling the empty place with guests,
hearing through its vacant windows the sound of voices and society, of
music and talk. How it was that those half-comprehended notes which
entranced Jean and had established so warm a bond of union between
her and the young stranger at Murkley should always be sounding out
of these windows, Lilias could not tell, for she had professed openly
her want of understanding and even of interest. But, notwithstanding
her ignorance, there was never a day that in her dreams she did not
catch an echo, among all the imagined sounds of the great house, from
some room or other, from some corner, of Lewis Murray's music. Perhaps
it was that she met himself so often about this centre of her lonely
wanderings.
Generous though Lilias was, and ready to sacrifice herself for the
advantage of her friends, it is not to be supposed that when she left
those two together to the mutual explanations and consultations and
confidences which took so long to say, she herself found much enjoyment
in the solitude even of her own words, with the sense in her mind
all the time that for the sake of the lovers she was deceiving her
sisters, whom she loved much better, and in a lesser sense helping to
deceive Katie's parents and Philip's mother, all of whom were more or
less under the same delusion. It did not make Lilias happy; she fled
to her dreams to take refuge from the questions which would assail
her, and the perpetual fault-finding of her conscience. When Lewis
appeared she was glad, for he answered the purpose of distracting her
from these self-arraignments better even than her dreams; yet sometimes
would be vexed and angry, disposed to resent his interest in the place
as an impertinence, and to wonder what he had to do with it that he
should go there so often and study it so closely, for he had always
his sketch-book in his hand. She was so restless and uncomfortable
that there were moments when Lilias felt her sense of propriety grow
strong upon her, and felt disposed to treat the young man haughtily as
an intruder, just as there were other moments when his presence was a
relief, when she would plunge almost eagerly into talk, and betray to
him, only half consciously, only half intentionally, the visions of
which her mind was full. There got to be a great deal of talk between
them on these occasions, and almost of intimacy as they wandered from
subject to subject. It was very different from the conversation which
Lilias carried on with her other companions, though she had known them
all her life--conversations in which matters of fact were chiefly in
question, affairs of the moment. With Lewis she spread over a much
wider range. With that curious charm which the mixture of intimacy
and new acquaintance produces, the sense of freedom, the certainty
of not being betrayed or talked over, Lilias opened her thoughts to
the new friend, whom she scarcely knew, as she never could have done
to those whom she had been familiar with all her life. It was like
thinking aloud. Her innocent confidences would not come back and stare
her in the face, as the revelations we make to our nearest neighbours
so often do. She did not reason this out, but felt it, and said to
Lewis, who was at once a brother and a stranger, the most attractive
conjunction--more about herself than Margaret knew, or even Jean,
without being conscious of what she was doing, to the great ease and
consolation of her heart.
But one of these afternoons Lilias met him in a less genial mood. She
had been sadly tried in patience and in feeling. Mrs. Stormont had paid
one of her visits that day. She had come in beaming with triumphant
looks, with Philip in attendance, who, in his mother's presence, was
even less amusing than usual. Mrs. Stormont had been received with
very cold looks by Margaret, and with anxious, deprecating politeness
by Jean, who feared the explosion of some of the gathering volcanic
elements; and Lilias perceived to her horror that Philip's mother
indemnified and avenged herself on Jean and Margaret by the triumphant
satisfaction of her demeanour towards herself, making common cause
with her, as it were, against her elder sisters, and offering a hundred
evidences of a secret bond of sympathy. She said "we," looking at
Lilias with caressing eyes. She called her by every endearing name she
could think of. She made little allusions to Philip, which drove the
girl frantic. And Philip himself sat by, having indeed the grace to
look terribly self-conscious and ashamed, but by that very demeanour
increasing his mother's urbanity and her triumph. Lilias bore this
while she could, but at last, in a transport of indignation and
suppressed rage, made her escape from the room and from the house,
rushing out into the coolness of the air and silence of the park, with
a sense that her position was intolerable, and that something or other
she must do to escape from it. So far from escaping from it, however,
she had scarcely got out of sight of the windows when she was joined
by Katie, whose fondness and devotion knew no limits, and who twined
her arm through that of Lilias with a tender familiarity which made her
more impatient still.
The climax was reached when Philip's steps were heard hurrying after
them, and Lilias knew as if she had seen the scene, what must have been
the delight of Mrs. Stormont as he rose to follow her, and what the
dismay and displeasure of Margaret and Jean. She seemed to hear Mrs.
Stormont declare that "like will draw to like" all the world over, and
to see the gloom upon the face of her mother-sisters.
"Oh! Lilias," Katie cried, "here he is coming; he can thank you better
than I can; all our happiness we owe to you."
Lilias turned blazing with quick wrath upon her persecutor.
"Why should _you_ be happy," she cried, "more than other people--and
when you are making me a liar? Yes, it is just a liar you are making
me!"
"Oh, Lilias, you are just an angel!" cried Katie, "and that is what
Philip thinks as well as me."
"Philip!" cried Lilias, with a passion of disdain. She cast a look at
him as he came up, of angry scorn, as if his presumption in forming
such an opinion was intolerable. She drew her arm out of Katie's almost
with fury, pushed them towards each other, and walked on swiftly with
a silent step of passion which devoured the way. She was so full of
heat and excitement that when she reached the new house of Murkley,
and almost stumbled against Lewis, who was standing against a tree
opposite the door, she gave a start of passion, and immediately turned
her weapons against him. She cast a glance of angry scorn at the
sketch-book in his hand.
"Are you here, Mr. Murray?" she cried, "and always your sketch-book,
though I never see you draw anything. I wonder what you come for,
always to the same spot every day; and it cannot be of any interest to
you."
Lewis, who had not been prepared for this sudden attack, grew red with
an impulse of offence, but checked himself instantly.
"You have entirely reason," he said, with his hat in his hand in his
foreign way. "I do nothing; I am not, indeed, worth my salt. The
sketch-book is no more than an excuse; and it is true," he added, "that
I have no right to be here, or to claim an interest----"
There is nothing that so covers with discomfiture an angry assailant
as the prompt submission of the person assailed, and Lilias was doubly
susceptible to this way of putting her in the wrong. She threw down her
arms at once, and blushed from head to foot at her own rudeness.
"Oh, what was I saying?" she cried--"what business have I to meddle
with you, whether you were sketching or not? But it was not you--it was
just vexation about--other things."
His tone, his look (though she was not looking at him), everything
about him, expressed an indignant partisanship, which went to Lilias'
heart.
"Why should you have any vexation? It is not to be borne!" he cried.
Lilias was so touched with this sympathy that it at once blew her cloud
away, and made her feel its injustice more than ever, which is a not
unusual paradox of feeling.
"Oh, what right have I to escape vexation?" she said. "I am just like
other people." And then she paused, and, looking back, saw the two
figures which she had abandoned in such angry haste turning aside into
the woods. They cared nothing about her vexation, whoever did so. She
laughed in an agitated way, as though she might have cried. There was
no concealing her feelings from such a keen observer. "I suppose," she
said, "that you are in the secret too?"
"I am in no secret," said Lewis, and his eyes were full of indignation;
"but that you should be made the scapegoat--oh, forgive me! but that is
what I cannot persuade myself to bear."
"Ah!" said Lilias, "how nice it is to meet with some one who
understands without a word! But I am no scapegoat--it is not quite so
bad as that."
"It ought not to be so at all," Lewis said, with a touch of severity
that had never been seen in his friendly face before.
Lilias looked at him with a little alarm, and with a great deal of
additional respect. And then she began to defend the culprits, finding
them thus placed before a judge so much more decided than herself.
"They don't think I mind--they don't mean to hurt me," she said.
"But they do hurt you--your delicate mind, your honour, and sense of
right. It is much against my interest," said Lewis, "I ought to plead
for them, to keep it all going on, for otherwise I should not see you,
I should not have my chance too; but it is more strong than me. It
ought not to be."
Lilias did not know what to answer him. His words confused her, though
she understood but dimly any meaning in them. His chance, too!--what
did he mean? But she did not ask anything about his meaning, though his
wonder distracted her attention, and made her voice uncertain.
"It is not so bad for me as it would be for them," Lilias said.
And then his countenance, which she had thought colourless often and
unimportant, startled her as he turned towards her, so glowing was it
with generous indignation. She had used the same words herself, or at
least the same idea, but somehow they had not struck her in their full
meaning till now.
"Why should they be spared at your expense? But you have no hand nor
share in it," he said. "We must bear our own burdens."
"But, Mr. Murray," said Lilias, "what should you think of a friend that
would not take your burden upon her shoulders and help you to bear it?"
The argument restored her to herself.
"I should think such a friend was more than half divine," he said.
Lilias knew very well that she was not half divine, and Katie's
declaration that she was an angel roused nothing but wrath in her mind;
nevertheless she was curiously consoled in her troubles by this other
hyperbole now.