Elizabeth, startled, lifted up her head, and disclosed to Patty's gaze in the candle-light a pale, and strained, and careworn face, "I was saying my prayers," she replied, with a dazed look. "Why are you out of bed, my darling? What is the matter?"
"That is what I want to know," said Patty, sitting down on the bed. "What is the matter with us all? What has come to us? Nelly has been crying ever since I put the light out—she thought I couldn't hear her, but she was mistaken—sobbing and sniffing under the bedclothes, and blowing her nose in that elaborately cautious way—"
"Oh, poor, dear child!" interrupted the maternal elder sister, making a start towards the door.
"No, don't go to her," said Patty, putting out her hand; "leave her alone—she is quiet now. Besides, you couldn't do her any good. Do you know what she is fretting about? Because Mr. Westmoreland has been neglecting her. Would you believe it? She is caring about it, after all—and we thought it was only fun. She doesn't care about him, she couldn't do that—"
"We can't tell," interrupted Elizabeth. "It is not for us to say. Perhaps she does, poor child!"
"Oh, she couldn't," Patty scornfully insisted. "That is quite impossible. No, she has got fond of this life that we are living now with Mrs. Duff-Scott—I have seen it, how it has laid hold of her—and she would like to marry him so that she could have it always. That is what she has come to. Oh, Elizabeth, don't you wish we had gone to Europe at the very first, and never come to Melbourne at all!" Here Patty herself broke down, and uttered a little shaking, hysterical sob. "Everything seems to be going wrong with us here! It does not look so, I know, but at the bottom of my heart I feel it. Why did we turn aside to waste and spoil ourselves like this, instead of going on to the life that we had laid out—a real life, that we should never have had to be ashamed of?"
Elizabeth was silent for a few minutes, soothing her sister's excitement with maternal caresses, and at the same time thinking with all her might. "We must try not to get confused," she said presently. "Life is life, you know, Patty, wherever you are—all the other things are incidental. And we need not try to struggle with everything at once. I think we have done our best, when we have had anything to do—any serious step to take—since we came to Melbourne; and in Europe we could have done no more. It seemed right to please Mrs. Duff-Scott, and to accept such a treasure as her friendship when it came to us in what seemed such a providential way—did it not? It seemed so to me. It would have been ungenerous to have held out against her—and we were always a little given to be too proud of standing alone. It makes her happy to have us. I don't know what work we could have done that would have been more profitable than that. Patty"—after another thoughtful pause—"I don't think it is that things are going wrong, dear. It is only that we have to manage them, and to steer our way, and to take care of ourselves, and that is so trying and perplexing. God knows I find it difficult! So, I suppose, does everyone."
"You, Elizabeth? You always seem to know what is right. And you are so good that you never ought to have troubles."
"If Nelly is susceptible to such a temptation as Mr. Westmoreland—Mr. Westmoreland, because he is rich—she would not have gone far with us, in any case," Elizabeth went on, putting aside the allusion to herself. "Europe would not have strengthened her. It would have been all the same. While, as for you, my darling—"
"I—I!" broke in Patty excitedly. "I should have been happy now, and not as I am! I should have been saved from making a fool of myself if I had gone to Europe! I should have been worth something, and able to do something, there!"