"Yes, but that is all over."
"All over?"
She bowed her head.
"Is there nothing left?" said Brian, approaching her a little more nearly. Then, as she was silent, he continued in a hurried, low voice, "I knew that life must be different here, but I thought that some of the pleasantest hours might be repeated—even in Scotland—although we are without those sunny skies and groves of orange trees. Even if the clouds are grey, and the winds howl without, we might still read Dante's 'Paradiso' and Petrarca's 'Sonnets,' as we used to do at the Villa Venturi."
"Yes," said Elizabeth, gently, "we might. But here I shall not have time."
"Why not? Why should you sacrifice yourself for others in the way you do? It is not right."
"I—sacrifice myself?" she said, lifting her eyes for a moment to his face. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," he said, "that I have watched you for the last three months, and I have seen you day after day give up your own pleasure and your own profit for others, until I longed to ask them what right they had to claim your whole life and leave you nothing—nothing—for yourself——"
"You mistake," she interrupted him quickly. "They leave me all I want; and they were kind to me when I came amongst them—a penniless child——"
"What does it matter if you were penniless?" said Brian. "Have you not paid them a thousand times for all that they did for you?" Then, as she looked at him with rather a singular expression in her eyes, he hastened to explain. "I mean that you have given them your love, your care, your time, in a way that no sister, no daughter, ever could have done! You have taught the children all they know; you have sympathised with the cares of every one in turn—I have watched you and seen it day by day! And I say that even if you are penniless, as you say, you have repaid them a thousand times for all that they have done; and that you are wrong to let them take your time and your care, to the exclusion of your own interests. I beg your pardon; I have said too much," he said, breaking off suddenly, as the singular expression deepened upon her musing face.