“I think Miss Barrington called you Mr. Conyers,” said she; “and if so, I have the happiness of feeling that my gratitude is bestowed where already there has been a large instalment of the sentiment. It is you who have been so generous and so kind to my poor brother.”
“Has he told you, then, what we have been planning together?”
“He has told me all that you had planned out for him,” said she, with a very gracious smile, which very slightly colored her cheek, and gave great softness to her expression. “My only fear was that the poor boy should have lost his head completely, and perhaps exaggerated to himself your intentions towards him; for, after all, I can scarcely think—”
“What is it that you can scarcely think?” asked he, after a long pause.
“Not to say,” resumed she, unheeding his question, “that I cannot imagine how this came about. What could have led him to tell you—a perfect stranger to him—his hopes and fears, his struggles and his sorrows? How could you—by what magic did you inspire him with that trustful confidence which made him open his whole heart before you? Poor Tom, who never before had any confessor than myself!”
“Shall I tell you how it came about? It was talking of you!”
“Of me! talking of me!” and her cheek now flushed more deeply.
“Yes, we had rambled on over fifty themes, not one of which seemed to attach him strongly, till, in some passing allusion to his own cares and difficulties, he mentioned one who has never ceased to guide and comfort him; who shared not alone his sorrows, but his hard hours of labor, and turned away from her own pleasant paths to tread the dreary road of toil beside him.”
“I think he might have kept all this to himself,” said she, with a tone of almost severity.
“How could he? How was it possible to tell me his story, and not touch upon what imparted the few tints of better fortune that lighted it? I'm certain, besides, that there is a sort of pride in revealing how much of sympathy and affection we have derived from those better than ourselves, and I could see that he was actually vain of what you had done for him.”