There was nothing in the young girl which did not seem beautiful to the old relative. Her originality, which made the well-trained servants stare, seemed the perfection of piquant grace to one whose fastidious tastes had been an example to the whole neighborhood. In her estimation Lady Clara could do nothing which was not in itself loveliest and best. The old lady had been so long without an object of affection, that her love of this girl became almost a monomania.
"I have an atonement to make," she would say to herself in excuse for this extraordinary and most pleasant subjugation; "for years and years I have driven this young creature from me because of what, I am almost convinced, were unfounded suspicions against her father and that woman. It is but just that I should accept my grandchild with generous confidence; and she deserves it—she deserves it."
After reasoning in this fashion awhile the repentant old lady would rack her brain for some new device by which this bright creature, who had come like a sunbeam into her house, might be persuaded never to leave it again. It was not altogether the selfishness of affection that actuated this honorable woman. It was hard to believe that a Carset could have acted unjustly, or even be mistaken; but, once convinced of that, her very pride insisted on a generous atonement. Never in her life had she been so humiliated as when the sight of those diamonds convinced her of the cruel charge which she had maintained for years against a person innocent of the offence imputed to her. She remembered, with compunction, how much harm she had done this woman, whose greatest fault now seemed to be that Lord Hope had married her.
Her own example had sufficed to exclude Lady Hope from the society to which her husband's rank entitled her, and her open expressions of dislike had cast a ban upon the stepmother, which had, to an extent, reacted on her own grandchild.
These thoughts troubled the proud old peeress a long time before she gave them expression; but, one day, Clara sat by her, looking a little sad, for, now that the excitement of her first coming was over, she began to think of Hepworth Closs—to wonder where he was, and yearn for some news of him to a degree that clouded her whole bright being like a feeling of homesickness.
"Poor child!" thought the old lady, while her soft, brown eyes dwelt upon that downcast face, as it bent over a piece of embroidery in which a cactus-flower formed the chief central glory; "how weary and troubled she looks! No wonder, poor thing! half her time is spent here with a stupid old woman, shut up so long from the world that she is but dull company for any one. I wonder if the thing which is upon my mind would really make her happy?"
"Clara."
The girl started. She had been so lost in thought that those bright eyes had been watching her some minutes, while she unconsciously pursued her work, and indulged in a reverie which was shadowed upon her features.
"Clara, you have not told me much about your stepmother."
"But I think of her; I was thinking of her then. Indeed, indeed, grandmamma, I always must love mamma Rachael, for she has been everything that is good and kind to me—I only wish you could understand how kind. If I know anything it is because she taught me."