I do not feel inclined for sleep, and there is a large round moon
looking in at my window. My foolish old moon, what a time it is since
you and I had a quiet serious look at one another. What things you used
to say to me, and what confidences I used to make in you--at this very
window, leaning my elbow in this very spot. That was when I was a child,
and fond of Colin--"Colin, my dear." How ridiculous it seems now, and
what a laugh it would raise against me if anybody had known it. Yet
what an innocent, simple, devoted child-love it was! I hardly think any
after-love, supposing I should ever feel one, will be, in its way, more
tender, or more true.
Moon, have you forgotten me? Am I becoming a middle-aged person; and is
a new and younger generation growing up to have confidences with you as
I used to have? Or is it I who have forsaken you? Most likely. You have
done me a deal of harm--and good, too--in my time. Yet you seem friendly
and mild to-night. I will forgive you, my poor old moon.
It has been a pleasant day. My head aches, a little, with the unusual
excitement--query, of pleasure?--Is pleasantness so very rare,
then?--No: I am weary with the exertion of having to make myself
agreeable: for Penelope is full of housekeeping cares, and a few sad
thoughts, too, may be, concerning the wedding; so that she takes little
trouble to entertain visitors. And Lisabel is "in love," you know, moon.
You would not think it, though, except from the licence she takes to be
lazy when Augustus is here, and up to the eyes in business when he is
away. I never thought a wedding was such a "piece of work," as the old
women say; such a time of incessant bustle, worry, and confusion. I only
saw the "love" side of it, Lisabel avers, and laughs at me when I wonder
at her for wearing herself out from morning till night in consultation
over her trousseau, and how we shall possibly manage to accommodate the
eight-and-forty particular friends who must be asked to the breakfast.
Happily, they are only the bride's friends. Sir William and Lady Augusta
Treherne cannot come, and Augustus does not care a straw for asking
anybody. He says he only wants his Lisa. His Lisa unfortunately requires
a few trifles more to constitute her bridal happiness; a wreath, a veil,
a breakfast, and six bridesmaids in Indian muslin. Rather cold, for
autumn, but which she says she cannot give up on any account, since a
wedding day comes but once, and she has been looking forward to her's
ever since she was born.
A wedding-day! Probably there are few of us who have not speculated on
it a little, as the day which, of all others, is the most decisive in a
woman's life. I am not ashamed to confess having occasionally thought
of mine. A foolish dream that comes and goes with one's teens; imagined
paradise of utterly impossible joy, to be shared with some paragon of
equally impossible perfection--I could sit and laugh at it now, if the
laughter were not bitterer than tears..
There, after writing this, I went and pulled down my hair, and tied it
under my chin to prevent cold--oh! most prudent five-and-twenty--leant
my elbow on the window-sill, in the old attitude of fifteen, staring up
at the moon and out across the firwoods for a long time. Returning, I
have re-lit my candle, and taken once more to my desk, and I say again,
O inquisitive moon, that this has been a pleasant day.
It was one of our quiet Rockmount Sundays, which Doctor Urquhart says he
enjoys so much. Poor Lisabel's last Sunday but one.
She will be married to-morrow week. We had our indispensable lover to
dinner, and Doctor Urquhart also. Papa told me to ask him as we were
coming out of the church. In spite of the distance, he often attends our
church now--at which papa seems gratified.
I delivered the message, which was not received with as much warmth as I
thought it ought to have been, considering that it came from an elderly
gentleman, who does not often pay a younger man than himself the
compliment of liking his society. I was turning away, saying I concluded
he had some better engagement, when Doctor Urquhart replied quickly:--
"No, indeed. That were impossible."
"Will you come then? Pray don't, if you dislike it."
For I was vexed at a certain hesitation and uneasiness in his manner,
which implied this; when I had been so glad to bring him the invitation
and had taken the trouble to cross half the church-yard after him, in
order to deliver it; which I certainly would not have done for a person
whom everybody liked.
N.B. This may be one of the involuntary reasons for my liking Doctor
Urquhart; that papa and I myself are the only two persons of our
family who unite in that opinion. Lisabel makes fun of him; Penelope
is scarcely civil to him; but that is because Francis, coming down last
week for a day, took a violent aversion to him.
I heard the girls laughing within a stone's throw of where we stood.
"Pray please yourself, Doctor Urquhart; come, or not come; but I can't
wait."
He looked at me with an amused air;--yes, I certainly have the honour of
amusing him, as a child or a kitten would--then said,--
"He would be happy to join us."
I was ashamed of myself for being thus pettish with a person so much
older and wiser than I, and who ought to be excused so heartily for
any peculiarities he has; yet he vexed me. He does vex me very much,
sometimes. I cannot understand why; it is quite a new feeling to be
so irritated with anybody. Either it is his manner, whieh is rather
variable, sometimes cheerful and friendly, and then again restless and
cold; or an uncomfortable sensation of being under control, which I
never yet had, even towards my own father. Once, when I was contesting
something with him, Augustus noticed it, and said, laughing:--
"Oh, the Doctor makes everybody do what he likes: you'd better give in
at once. I always do."
But I cannot, and I will not.
To feel vexed with a person, to know they have the power of vexing
you--that a chance word or look can touch you to the quick, make you
feel all over in a state of irritation, as if all the world went wrong,
and you were ready to do anything cross, or sullen, or childishly
naughty--until another chance word or look happens to set you right
again--this is an extremely uncomfortable state of things.
I must guard against it. I must not allow my temper to get way.
Sensitive it is, I am aware, quick to feel sore, and to take offence;
but I am not a thoroughly ill-tempered woman. Doctor Urquhart does not
think so: he told me he did not. One day, when I had been very cross
with him, he said "I had done him no harm; that I often did him good."
Me--to do good to Doctor Urquhart! What an extraordinary thing!
I like to do people good--to do it my own self, too--a mean pleasure,
perhaps, yet it is a pleasure, and I was pleased by this saying of
Doctor Urquhart's. If I could but believe it! I do believe it sometimes.
I know that I can make him smile, let him be ever so grave; that
something in me and my ways interests and amuses him in an inglorious,
kittenish fashion, as I said; yet, still, I draw him out of himself,
I make him merry, I bring light into his face till one could hardly
believe it was the same face that I first saw at 'the Cedars; and it
is pleasant to me to think that, by some odd sympathy or other, I am
pleasant to him, as I am to few--alas! to very few.
I know when people dislike me: know it keenly, painfully; I know, too,
with a sort of stolid patience, when they are simply indifferent to me.
Doubtless, in both cases, they have every reason; I blame nobody, not
even myself, I only state a fact. But with such people I can no more be
my natural self, than I can run about, bare-footed and bare-headed, in
our north winds or moorland snows. But if a little sunshine comes, my
heart warms to it, basks in it, dances under it, like the silliest young
lamb that ever frisked in a cowslip-meadow, rejoicing in the May.
I am not, and never pretend to be, a humble person. I feel there is that
in me which is worth something, but a return for which I have never yet
received. Give me its fair equivalent, its full and honest price, and
oh, if I could expend it every mite, how boundlessly rich I should grow!
This last sentence means nothing; nor do I quite understand it myself.
Writing a journal is a safety-valve for much folly; yet I am by no means
sure that I ought to have written the last page.
However, no more of this; let me tell the story of my day.
Walking from church, Doctor Urquhart told me that Augustus had asked him
to be best-man at the wedding.
I said, I knew it, and wished he would consent.
"Why?"
Though the abrupt question surprised me, I answered, of course, the
truth. That if the best-man were not himself, it would be one of the
camp officers, and I hated--
"Soldiers?"
I told him, it was not kind to be always throwing in my teeth that
unfortunate speech; that he ought not to teaze me so.
"Do I teaze you? I was not aware of it."
"Very likely not; and I am a great simpleton for allowing myself to be
teazed with such trifles. But Doctor Urquhart cannot expect me to be as
wise as himself; he is a great deal older than I."
"Tell me, then," he continued, in that kind tone, which always makes me
feel something like a little pet donkey I once had, which, if I called
it across the field, would come and lay its head on my hand,--not that,
donkey as I am, I incline to trouble Doctor Urquhart in that way.--"Tell
me what it is you do hate?"
"I hate to have to entertain strangers."
"Then you do not consider me a stranger?"
"No; a friend."
I may say that; for short as our acquaintance dates, I have seen more of
Doctor Urquhart, and seem to know him better than any man in the whole
course of my life. He did not refuse the title I gave him, and I think
he was gratified, though he said only:--
"You are very kind, and I thank you."
Presently I recurred to the subject of discussion, and wished him to
promise what Augustus, and Lisabel, and we all desired.
He paused a moment, then said, decisively:--
"I will come."
"That is right. I know we can always depend upon Doctor Urquhart's
promises."
Was my gladness over-bold? Would he misconstrue it? No--he is too
clear-sighted, too humble-minded, too wise. With him, I have always the
feeling that I need take no trouble over what I do or say, except that
it should be true and sincere. Whatever it is, he will judge it fairly.
And if he did not, why should I care?
Yes, I should care. I like him--I like him very much. It would be a
comfort to me to have him for a friend--one of my very own. In some
degree, he treats me as such; today, for instance, he told me more about
himself than he ever did to any one of us. It came out accidentally. I
cannot endure a man who, at first acquaintance, indulges you with his
autobiography in full. Such an one must be either a puppy or an idiot.
--Ah, there I am again, at my harsh judgments, which Doctor Urquhart has
so often tacitly reproved. This good man, who has seen more of the
world and its wickedness than I am ever likely to see, is yet the most
charitable man I ever knew. To return.
Before we reached Rockmount, the sky had clouded over, and in an hour
it was a thoroughly wet afternoon. Penelope went upstairs to write
her Sunday letter, and Augustus and Lisabel gave broad hints that they
wished the drawing-room all to themselves. Perforce, Doctor Urquhart and
I had to entertain ourselves.
I took him into the greenhouse, where he lectured to me on the
orchidacea and vegetation of the tropics generally,--to his own content,
doubtless, and partially to mine. I like to hear his talking, so wise,
yet so simple; a freshness almost boyish seems to linger in his nature
still, and he has the thoroughly boyish peculiarity of taking pleasure
in little things.
He spent half an hour in reviving a big brown bee which had grown
torpid with cold, and there was in his eyes a kindness, as over a human
creature, when he gave into my charge his "little patient," whom I
promised to befriend. (There he is, poor old fellow, fast asleep on a
flower-pot, till the first bright morning I can turn him out.)
"I am afraid, though, he will soon get into trouble again, and not
find so kind a friend," said I, to Doctor Urquhart. "He will intoxicate
himself in the nearest flower-cup, and seek repentance and restoration
too late."
"I hope not," said the Doctor, sadly and gravely.
I said I was sorry for having made a jest upon his favourite doctrine
of repentance and restoration of sinners, which he seemed always both to
preach and to practice.
"Do I? Perhaps. Do you not think it's very much, needed in this world?"
I said, I had not lived long enough in the world to find out.
"I forgot how young you were."
He had once, in his direct way, asked my age, and I had told him, much
disposed likewise to return the question, but was afraid. Sometimes I
feel quite at home with him, as if I could say anything to him, and
then again he makes me, not actually afraid--thank goodness, I never was
afraid of any man yet, and hope I never shall be--but shy and quiet.
I suppose it is because he is so very good; because in his presence my
little follies and wickednesses hide their heads. I cease perplexing
myself about them, or about myself at all, and only think--not of him
so much as of something higher and better than either him or me. Surely
this cannot be wrong.
The bee question settled, we sat down, silent, listening to the rain
pattering on the glass roof of the greenhouse. It was rather a dreary
day. I began thinking of Lisabel's leaving more than was good for me;
and, with that penetrative kindness which I have often noticed in him,
Doctor Urquhart turned my sad thoughts away, by various information
about Treherne Court, and the new relations of our Lisa--not many. I
said, "happily, she would have neither brother or sister-in-law."
"Happily! You cannot be in earnest?"
I half wished I had not been, and yet I could not but speak my
mind--that brothers and sisters, in law or in blood, were often anything
but a blessing.
"I must emphatically differ from you there. I think it is, with few
exceptional cases, the greatest misfortune to be an only child. Few are
so naturally good, or reared under such favourable circumstances, that
such a position does not do them harm. A lonely childhood and youth may
make a great man, a good man, but it rarely makes a happy man. Better
all the tussles and troubles of family life, where the angles
of character are rubbed off, and its inclinations to morbidness,
sensitiveness, and egotism knocked down. I think it is a great wonder
to see Treherne such a good fellow as he is, considering he has been an
only child."
"You speak as if you knew what that was yourself."
"No, we were orphans, but I had one brother."
This was the first time Doctor Urquhart had reverted to any of his
relatives, or to his early life. My curiosity was strong. I risked a
question: was this brother older or younger than he?
"Older."
"And his name?"
"Dallas."
"Dallas Urquhart--what a nice name."
"It is common in the family. There was a Dallas Urquhart, younger
brother to a Sir John Urquhart, who, in the religious troubles, seceded
to Episcopacy. He was in love with a minister's sister--a Presbyterian.
She died broken-hearted, and in despair at her reproaches, Dallas threw
himself down a precipice, where his whitened bones were not found till
many years after. Is not that a romantic history?"
I said romantic and painful histories were common enough; there had been
some, even in our matter-of-fact family. But he was not so inquisitive
as I; nor should I have told him further; we never speak on this subject
if we can help it. Even the Grantons--our intimate friends ever since we
came to live at Rockmount--have never been made acquainted with it. And
Penelope said there was no need to tell Augustus, as it could not affect
him, or any person now living, and, for the sake of the family, the sad
story was better forgotten. I think so, too.
With a sigh, I could not help observing to Doctor Urquhart, that it must
be a very happy thing to have a brother--a good brother.
"Yes. Mine was the best that any one ever had. He was a minister of the
Kirk--that is, he would have been, but he died."
"In Scotland?"
"No--at Pau, in the Pyrenees."
"Were you with him?"
"I was not."
This seemed a remembrance so acutely painful, that shortly afterwards
I tried to change the subject, by asking a question or two about
himself,--and especially what I had long wanted to find out--how he
came by that eccentric Christian-name.
"Is it eccentric?--I really never knew or thought after whom I was
called."
I suggested, Max Piccolomini.
"Who was he, pray? My improfessional reading has been small. I am
ashamed to say I never heard of Max Piccolomini." Amused by this _naive_
confession of ignorance, I offered jestingly to give him a course
of polite literature, and begin with that grandest of German dramas,
Schiller's Wallenstein.
"Not in German, if you please; I don't know a dozen words of the
language."
"Why, Doctor Urquhart, I must be a great deal cleverer than you."
I had said this out of utter incredulity at the ludicrous idea; but, to
my surprise, he took it seriously.
"You are right. I know I am a coarse, uneducated person; the life of
an army-surgeon allows few opportunities of refinement, and, like many
another boy, I threw away my chances when I had them."
"At school?"
"College, rather."
"Where did you go to college?"
"At St. Andrews."
The interrogative mood being on me, I thought I would venture a question
which had been often on my mind to ask--namely, what made him choose to
be a doctor, which always seemed to me the most painful and arduous of
professions.
He was so slow in answering, that I began to fear it was one of my too
blunt queries, and apologized.
"I will tell you, if you desire it. My motive was not unlike one you
once suggested--to save life instead of destroying it; also, because I
wished to have my own life always in my hand. I cannot justly consider
it mine. It is _owed._"
To heaven, I conclude he meant, by the solemnity of his manner. Yet, are
not all lives owed? And, if so, my early dream of perfect bliss, namely,
for two people to spend their lives together in a sort of domestic
Pitcairn's Island, cradled in a spiritual Pacific Ocean, with nothing to
do but to love one another--must be a delusion, or worse. I am beginning
to be glad I never found it. We are not the birds and butterflies, but
the labourers of the earthly vineyard. To discover one's right work
and do it, must be the grand secret of life.--With or without love, I
wonder? With it--I should imagine. But Doctor Urquhart in his plan of
existence, never seems to think of such an insignificant necessity.
Yet let me not speak lightly. I like him--I honor him. Had I been his
dead brother, or a sister which he never had, I would have helped,
rather than have hindered him in his self-sacrificing career. I would
have scorned to put in my poor claim over him or his existence. It would
have seemed like taking for daily uses the gold of the sanctuary.
And here pondering over all I have heard of him and seen in him: the
self-denial, the heroism, the religious purity of his daily life--which
has roused in even the light heart of Augustus Treherne an attachment
approaching to positive devotion, that all the jesting of Lisabel is
powerless to shake, I call to mind one incident of this day, which
startled, shocked me: concerning which even now I can scarcely credit
the evidence of my own ears.
We had all gathered round the fire waiting papa's return from the second
service, Penelope, Lisabel, Augustus, Doctor Urquhart, I. The rain had
cleared off, and there was only a soft drip, drip, on the glass of
the greenhouse outside. We were very peaceful and comfortable: it felt
almost like a family circle--which, indeed it was, with one exception.
The new member of our family seemed to make himself considerably at
his ease--sat beside his Lisa, and held her hand under cover of her
apron--at which I thought I saw Doctor Urquhart smile. Why should he?
The caress was quite natural.
Penelope was less restless than usual: owing may be to her long letter
and the prospect of seeing Francis in a week: he comes to the marriage,
of course. Poor fellow, what a pity we cannot have two weddings instead
of one!--it is rather hard for him to be only a wedding guest and
Penelope only a bridesmaid. But I am ceasing to laugh at even Francis
and Penelope.
I myself, in my own little low chair in its right angle on the
hearth-rug, felt perfectly happy. Is it the contrast between it and
the life of solitude of which I have only lately had any knowledge that
makes my own home life so much sweeter than it used to be?
The gentlemen began talking together about the difference between this
quiet scene and that of November last year: when, Sebastopol taken,
the army was making up its mind to winter in idleness, as merrily as
it could. And then Doctor Urquhart reverted to the former winter, the
terrible time--until its miseries reached and touched the English heart
at home. And yet, as Doctor Urquhart said, such misery seems often to
evoke the noblest half of man's nature. Many an anecdote, proving this,
he told about "his poor fellows," as he called them; tales of heroism,
patient endurance, unselfishness and generosity,--such as, in the
mysterious agency of providence, are always developed by that great
purifier as well as avenger, war.
Listening, my cheek burnt to think I had ever said I hated soldiers.
It is a solemn question, too momentous for human wisdom to decide upon,
and, probably, never meant to be decided in this world--the justice of
carnage, the necessity of war. But thus far I am convinced--and intend,
the first opportunity, to express my thanks to Doctor Urquhart for
having taught me the lesson--that to set one's self in fierce aversion
against any class as a class, is both foolish and wicked. We should
"hate" nobody. The Christian warfare is never against sinners, but
against sin.
Speaking of the statistics of mortality in the army, Doctor Urquhart
surprised us by stating how small a percentage--bless me, I am beginning
to talk like a blue-book--results from death in battle and from wounds.
And strange as it may appear, the mortality in a? campaign, with all its
fatal chances, is less than in barracks at home. He has long suspected
this, from the accounts of the men, and having lately, from clear data,
ascertained its accuracy, intends urging it at the Horse Guards, or
failing there, in the public press,--that the causes may be inquired
into and remedied. It will be at some personal risk: Government never
likes being meddled with; but he seems the sort of man who, having once
got an idea into his head, would pursue it to the death--and very right
too. If I had been a man, I would have done exactly the same.
All this while, I have never told--that thing. It came out, as well as I
can remember, thus:--.
Doctor Urquhart was saying that the average mortality of soldiers in
barracks was higher than that of any corresponding class of workingmen.
He attributes this to want of space? cleanliness, fresh air, and good
food.
"Also, to another cause, which you always find flourishing under such
circumstances--drink. It is in a barracks just as in the courts and
alleys of a large city--wherever you find people huddled together in
foul air, ill smells, and general wretchedness--they drink. They cannot
help it, it seems a natural necessity."
"There, we have the Doctor on his hobby. Gee-up, Doctor!" cried
Augustus. I wonder his friend stands his nonsense so good-humouredly.
"You know it is true, though, Treherne," and he went on speaking to me.
"In the Crimea, the great curse of our army was drink. Drink killed more
of us than the Russians did. You should have seen what I have seen--the
officer maddening himself with champagne at the mess-table--the private
stealing out to a rum-store to booze secretly over his grog. The thing
was obliged to be winked at, it was so common."
"In hospital, too," observed Captain Treherne gradually listening.
"Don't you remember telling me there was not a week passed that you had
not cases of death solely from, drinking?"
"And, even then, I could not stop it, nor keep the liquor outside the
wards. I have come in and found drunken orderlies carousing with drunken
patients: nay, more than once I have taken the brandy-bottle from under
a dead man's pillow."
"Ay, I remember," said Augustus, looking grave.
Lisabel, who never likes his attention diverted from her charming self,
cried saucily:--
"All very fine talking, Doctor,--but you shall not make me a
teetotaller, nor Augustus neither, I hope."
"I have not the slightest intention of the kind, I assure you: nor does
there seem any necessity. Though, for those who have not the power to
resist intoxication, it is much safer never to touch stimulants."
"Do you never touch them?"
"I have not done so for many years."
"Because you are afraid? Well, I dare say you were no better once than
your neighbours."
"Lisabel!" I whispered, for I saw Doctor Urquhart wince under her rude
words: but there is no stopping that girl's tongue.
"Now confess, Doctor, just for fun. Papa is not here, and we'll tell no
tales out of school--were you ever in your life, to use your own ugly
word, _drunk?_"
"Once."
Writing this, I can hardly believe he said it, and yet he did, in a
quiet, low voice, as if the confession were forced from him as a sort of
voluntary expiation.
Doctor Urquhart _drunk!_ What a frightful idea! Under what circumstances
could it possibly have happened? One thing I would stake my life
upon,--it never happened but that once.
I have been thinking, how horrible it must be to see anybody one
cared for drunk: the honest eyes dull and meaningless; the wise lips
jabbering foolishness; the whole face and figure, instead of being
what one likes to look at, takes pleasure to see in the same room,
even,--growing ugly, irrational, disgusting--more like a beast than a
man.
Yet some women have to bear it, have to speak kindly to their husbands,
hide their brutishness, and keep them from making worse fools of
themselves than they can help. I have seen it done, not merely by
working-men's wives, but lady-wives in drawing-rooms. I think, if I were
married, and I saw my husband the least overcome by wine, not "drunk"
may be, but just excited, silly, otherwise than his natural self, it
would nearly drive me wild. Less on my own account than his. To see
him sink--not for a great crime, but a contemptible, cowardly bit of
sensualism--from the height where my love had placed him; to have to
take care of him, to pity him--ay, and I might pity him, but I think
the full glory and passion of my love would die out, then and there, for
ever.
Let me not think of this, but go on relating what occurred to-day.
Doctor Urquhart's abrupt confession, which seemed to surprise Augustus
as much as anybody, threw an awkwardness over us all; we slipped out of
the subject, and plunged into the never-ending theme--the wedding and
its arrangements. Here I found out that Doctor Urquhart had, at first,
refused, point-blank, his friend's request that he would be best-man,
but, on my entreating him this morning, had changed his mind. I was
glad, and expressed my gladness warmly. I would not like Doctor Urquhart
to suppose we thought the worse of him for what he had confessed, or
rather been forced into confessing. It was very wrong of Lisabel. But
she really seemed sorry, and paid him special attention in consultations
about what she thinks the important affairs of Monday week. I was almost
cross at the exemplary patience with which he examined the orange-tree,
and pronounced that the buds would open in time, he thought; that if
not, he would try, as in duty bound, to procure some. He also heroically
consented to his other duty, of returning thanks for "the bridesmaids,"
for we are to have healths drunk, speeches made, and all the rest of it.
Mercy on us! how will papa ever stand it!
These family events have always their painful side. I am sure papa will
feel it. I only trust that no chance observations will strike home, and
hurt him. This fear haunted me so much, that I took an opportunity of
suggesting to Dr. Urquhart that all the speeches had better be as short
as possible.
"Mine shall be, I promise. Were you afraid of it?" asked he, smiling; it
was just before the horses were brought up, and we were all standing but
in the moonlight--for shame, moon, leading us to catch cold just before
our wedding, and very thoughtless of the Doctor to allow it, too. I
could see by his smile that he was now quite himself again,--which was a
relief.
"Oh, nonsense; I shall expect you to make the grandest speech that ever
was heard. But, seriously, these sort of speeches are always trying, and
will be so, especially to papa."
"I understand. We must take care: you are a thoughtful little
lady."--He sometimes has called me "Little lady," instead of "Miss
Theodora."--"Yes, your father will feel acutely this first break in the
family."
I said I did not mean that exactly, as it was not the case. And, for
the first time, it struck me as sad, that one whom I never knew, whom I
scarcely ever think of, should be lost from among us, so lost as not to
be even named.
Doctor Urquhart asked me why I looked so grave? At first I said I had
rather not tell him, and then I felt as if at that moment, standing
quietly talking in the lovely night, after such a happy day, it were a
comfort, almost a necessity, to tell him anything, everything.
"I was thinking of someone belonging to me whom nobody knows of, whom we
never speak about. Hush, don't let them hear."
"Who was it? But I beg your pardon, do not tell me unless you like."
From his tone,--he thought, I know he thought---- Oh, what a ridiculous,
impossible thing! Then I was determined to tell.
"It was one--who was Papa's favourite among us all."
"A sister?"
"No, a brother."
I had not time to say any more, for they were just starting, nor am I
satisfied that I was right in saying so much. But the confidence is safe
with him, and he will never refer to it; he will feel, as we do, that a
subject so painful is best avoided, even among ourselves--on the whole
I am glad he knows.
Coming indoors, the girls made me very angry by their jests, but
the anger has somehow evaporated now. What does it matter? As I told
Lisabel, friends do not grow on every hedge, though lovers may, and
when one finds a good man one ought to value him, nor be ashamed of it
either.
No, no, my sweet moon, setting so quickly behind that belt of firs,
I _will_ like him if I choose, as I like everything true and noble
wherever I find it in this world.
Moon, it is a good world, a happy world, and grows happier the longer
one lives in it. So I will just watch your silver ladyship--a nice
"little lady" you are too, slipping away from it with that satisfied
farewell smile, and then--I shall go to bed.