Then Josepha ceased speaking and silently took the weeping girl in her arms. She kissed her, and held her close, until the storm of sorrow was over, then she said softly:
“There it is, Lovey! The lot of women is on thee. Bear it bravely for thy father’s sake. He hes a lot to manage now, and he ought not to see anything but happy people, or hear anything but loving words. Wash thy face, and put on thy dairymaid’s linen bonnet and we will take a breath of fresh air in the lower meadow. Its hedges are all full of the Shepherd’s rose, and their delicious perfume gives my soul a fainty feeling, and makes me wonder in what heavenly paradise I had caught that perfume before.”
“I will, aunt. You have done me good, it would be a help to many girls to have heard your story. We have so many ideas that, if examined, would not look as we imagine them to be. Agatha De Burg used to say that ‘unfaithfulness to our first love was treason to our soul.’”
“I doan’t wonder, if that was her notion. She stuck through thick and thin to that scoundrel De Burg, and she was afraid De Burg was thinking of thee, and afraid thou would marry him. When girls first go into society they are in a bit of a hurry to get married; if they only wait a year or two, it does not seem such a pressing matter. Thou knows De Burg was Agatha’s first love, and she hes not realized yet, that it is a God’s mercy De Burg hes not kep the promises he made her.”
“The course of true love never yet ran smooth,” and Katherine sighed as she poured out some water and prepared to wash her face.
“Kitty,” said her aunt, “the way my life hes been ordered for me, shows that God, and only God, orders the three great events of ivery life—birth, marriage and death; that is, if we will let Him do so. Think a moment, if I hed married John Thomas Bradley, I would hev spent all my best days in a lonely Yorkshire hamlet, in the midst of worrying efforts to make work pay, that was too out-of-date to struggle along. Until I was getting to be an old woman, I would hev known nothing but care and worry, and how John Thomas would hev treated me, nobody but God knew. I hated poverty, and I would hev been poor. I wanted to see Life and Society and to travel, and I would hardly hev gone beyond Annis Village. Well, now, see how things came about. I mysen out of pure bad temper made a quarrel with my lover, and then perversely I wouldn’t make it up, and then the Admiral steps into my life, gives me ivery longing I hed, and leaves me richer than all my dreams. I hev seen Life and Society, and the whole civilized world, and found out just what it is worth, and I hev made money, and am now giving mysen the wonderful pleasure of helping others to be happy. Sit thee quiet. If Harry is thine, he will come to thee sure as death! If he does not come of his awn free will, doan’t thee move a finger to bring him. Thou wilt mebbe bring nothing but trouble to thysen. There was that young banker thou met at Jane’s house, he loved thee purely and sincerely. Thou might easily hev done far worse than marry him. Whativer hed thou against him?”
“His hair.”
“What was wrong with the lad’s hair?”
“Why, aunt, Jane called it ‘sandy’ but I felt sure it was turning towards red.”
“Stuff and nonsense! It will niver turn anything but white, and it won’t turn white till thy awn is doing the same thing. And tha knaws it doesn’t make much matter what color a man’s hair is. Englishmen are varry seldom without a hat of one kind or another. I doan’t believe I would hev known the Admiral without his naval hat, or in his last years, his garden hat. Does tha remember an old lady called Mrs. Sam Sagar? She used to come and see thy mother, when thou was only a little lass about eight years old, remember her, she was a queer old lady.”