“But then it is so unfair, so ungenerous, to keep anything from the poor girl that may concern her.”
At this moment Julia came softly into the room with her curiosity hidden under an air of angelic composure.
Her mother asked after Mrs. Beecher, to draw her into conversation. She replied quietly that Mrs. Beecher was no better, but very thankful for the wine Mrs. Dodd had sent her. This answer given, she went without any apparent hurry and sat by Edward, and fixed two loving imploring eyes on him in silence. Oh, subtle sex! This feather was to turn the scale, and make him talk unquestioned. It told. She was close to him too, and mamma at the end of the room.
“Look here, Ju,” said he, putting his hands in his pockets, “we two have always been friends as well as brother and sister; and somehow it does not seem like a friend to keep things dark;” then to Mrs. Dodd: “She is not a child, mother, after all; and how can it be wrong to tell her the truth, or right to suppress the truth? Well then, Ju, there's an advertisement in the 'Tiser, and it's a regular riddle. Now mind, I don't really think there is anything in it; but it is a droll coincidence, very droll; if it wasn't there are ladies present, and one of them a district visitor, I would say, d—d droll. So droll,” continued he, getting warm, “that I should like to punch the advertiser's head.”
“Let me see it, dear,” said Julia. “I dare say it is nothing worth punching about.”
“There,” said Edward. “I've marked it.”
Julia took the paper, and her eye fell on this short advertisement:
AILEEN AROON.—DISTRUST APPEARANCES.
Looking at her with some anxiety, they saw the paper give one sharp rustle in her hands, and then quiver a little. She bowed her head over it, and everything seemed to swim. But she never moved: they could neither of them see her face, she defended herself with the paper. The letters cleared again, and, still hiding her face, she studied and studied the advertisement.
“Come, tell us what you think of it,” said Edward. “Is it anything? or a mere coincidence?”