"Yes,—I suppose so," she said slowly. "I am not sure that I look much for the return love. It is enough for me to be needful to him. Still,—yes, he is fond of me."
"I am sure he is! He was dreadfully unhappy about you when you were ill," I said.
She smiled, and said— "Poor Walter! always up and down."
"I think it would have broken his heart if you had not got better," I said.
"O no!" and a curious look came into her face. "No fear of that. I love my Walter dearly—more dearly than you can tell. I love him as one loves only where one has brought up and sheltered and toiled for another through years. But love does not blind me to his faults. Perhaps I see them the more clearly just because my love is so strong."
I wondered what she meant; and feeling her eyes upon me, my colour went up.
"He has his faults," she said, "and his weaknesses. Don't you think so, Kitty?"
"Yes, of course. Everybody has faults," I answered. "I shouldn't think he has so many as some people."
"Quite as many." And Miss Russell sighed. "It was a difficult thing for me," says she, "very difficult, left alone with him, and I—his sister—only a girl. To be sure, I was many years older; still, I did find it hard to control him properly. I am afraid I didn't. I let him have too much of his own way,—a great deal too much. One sees the ill effects now: he can't understand being denied anything. Yes, that is true, though he is a man, and a clever man, and good at managing boys,—at least, pretty good. He can never understand being opposed. It's a bad look-out for his future wife, whoever she may be. I little thought, when I spoilt the boy, that I was so cruel to other people as well as to him."
I kept silence, sure that Miss Russell must be wrong. It was strange that she should judge her brother harshly—she, of all people, so gentle as she seemed. And why should she say all this to me? Why—? But a thought came in reply which turned me hot all over. Did she think, or know, that he wanted to have me for a wife? Was that it? I couldn't look up or meet her eyes.