It was no small mortification to Massingbred to spend his evening in these genealogical researches; he had seen the two young girls move off into an adjoining room, from which at times the sound of a piano, and of voices singing, issued, and was half mad with impatience to be along with them. However, it was a penalty must be exacted, and he thought that the toll once paid he had secured himself against all demands for the future.
Not caring to participate in the many intricacies of those family discussions wherein the degrees of relationship of individuals seem to form the sole points of interest, we shall betake ourselves to the little blue drawing-room, where, seated at the piano together, the two young girls talked, while their fingers strayed along the notes as though affording a species of involuntary accompaniment to their words. Nelligan, it is true, was present; but, unnoticed by either, he sat apart in a distant corner, deep in his own brooding thoughts.
Mary had only made Miss Henderson's acquaintance on that evening, but already they were intimate. It was, indeed, no common boon for her to obtain companionship with one of her own age, and who, with the dreaded characteristics of a governess, was in reality a very charming and attractive person. Miss Henderson sang with all the cultivated knowledge of a musician; and, while she spoke of foreign countries where she had travelled, lapsed at times into little snatches of melody, as it were, illustrative of what she spoke. The delight Mary experienced in listening was unbounded; and if at moments a sad sense of her own neglected education shot through her mind, it was forgotten the next instant in her generous admiration.
“And how are you, who have seen this bright and brilliant world you speak of,” said Mary, “to sit quietly down in this unbroken solitude, where all the interests are of the humblest and more ordinary kind?”
“You forget that I saw all these things, as it were, on sufferance,” replied she. “I was not born to them, nor could ever hope for more than a passing glance at splendors wherein I was not to share. And as for the quiet monotony here, an evening such as this, companionship like yours, are just as much above my expectations.”
“Oh, no, no!” cried Mary, eagerly. “You were as surely destined for a salon as I was for the rude adventures of my own wayward life. You don't know what a strange existence it is.”
“I have heard, however!” said the other, calmly.
“Tell me—do tell me—what you have been told of me, and don't be afraid of wounding my vanity; for, I pledge you my word, I do think of myself with almost all the humility that I ought.”
“I have heard you spoken of in the cabins of the poor as their only friend, their comforter, and their hope; the laborer knows you as his succor,—one by whose kind intervention he earns his daily bread; their children love you as their own chosen protector.”
“But it's not of these things I 'm speaking,” said Mary, rapidly. “Do they not call me self-willed, passionate, sometimes imperious?”