CHAPTER V.
It was some little time before I asked Clare how she liked Coralie, then the answer was most diplomatic.
"I am so very sorry for her, Edgar, and so pleased that she has a home with us."
She never said more than that, or less. Knowing her amiable character, I came to the conclusion that she did not like her, but was too good-natured and kind-hearted to say so.
Mademoiselle, as she was called in the household, was very kind to my sister. She engaged a maid, whose only business was to wait upon her; and more than that, she spent some hours, at least, every day in her room. She attended to her flowers, fed her birds, selected her books, played and sang to her, read to her, talked to her in her bright, lively way, superintended her dress, so that I always saw my darling exquisitely attired; and yet I could not see that Clare liked her.
She soon made herself almost indispensable. She gave orders to the housekeeper and cook, she managed everything; she received our visitors and entertained them with marvelous grace and courtesy; she understood all the affairs of the estate; in fact, she was, to all intents and purposes, mistress of the house.
I insisted upon making her a very handsome allowance, which, after a little resistance, she accepted.
For a time everything went on most prosperously. How I loved my new life no words of mine can tell. The luxury of having plenty of money, of being able to do what I liked with my time, of seeing my sister so happy, of being altogether without those dark fears for the future which so often beset those whose lot is hard work and very limited means—I thanked God for it all.
I had made the acquaintance of most of the tenants on the estate, and my neighbors had begun to call upon me. It was surprising how every one liked, or, I may say, loved, my sister Clare. That invalid couch of hers became a kind of center of society.