'Yes, it certainly led her to be very unjust, as she acknowledged this morning,' said Anne, 'and rather unkind to Helen. But then it was no wonder that she was mad with the Hazlebys.'
Anne then told the history of poor Dora's trouble, and was quite satisfied with her mother's displeasure at Mrs. Hazleby, and her admiration of little Dora.
'And what do you think of Helen?' asked she presently.
'I can hardly tell,' said Anne, 'she is still very demure, with very little of Lizzie's sparkling merriment; indeed, she does not seem in the least able to enter into a joke. But then she said some very sensible things. Lizzie said she wondered what we should think of her. She thinks her very much improved, but complains that she has lost her home feelings, and cares only for Dykelands; I scarcely know what she means.'
'I think that I can guess,' said Lady Merton, 'from knowing a little more of Mrs. Staunton's character. She is a very amiable person, and has in reality, I believe, plenty of good sense; but she has allowed herself to fall into an exaggerated style of feeling and expression, which, I dare say, bewitched a girl like Helen, and now makes her find home cold and desolate.'
'Like the letter which Mrs. Staunton wrote to you about Rupert, and which Papa called ecstatic,' said Anne.
'That is an instance of Mrs. Staunton's way of expressing herself,' said Lady Merton; 'now I will give you one of her acuteness of feeling, as she calls it. Your Aunt Katherine was her greatest friend when she was a girl, though I believe the kind epithets she lavished upon me would have been enough to stock two or three moderate friendships. We all used to walk together, and spend at least one evening in the week together. One evening, your aunt, who had a good deal of the same high careless spirit which you observe in Lizzie, chanced to make some observation upon the rudeness of sailors in general, forgetting that Helen Atherley's brother was a sailor.'
'Or if she had remembered it,' said Anne, 'judging by Lizzie, she would have said the same thing; she would have taken it for granted that the present company was always excepted.'
'Captain Atherley was not of the present company,' said Lady Merton, 'he was in the Mediterranean; and it happened that he had not had time to call at Merton Hall in due form, the last time he had been at home, so that poor Helen thought that this speech was aimed at him. She said nothing at the time; but next morning arrived a note to me, to entreat me to find out what her darling Henry could possibly have done to offend dearest Katherine Merton, for she should be wretched till she understood it, and Katherine had forgiven her and him. She assured me that she had lain awake all night, thinking it over, and had at last come to the conclusion that it must be this unfortunate omission, and she promised to write to dear Henry immediately, to make him send all possible apologies.'
'Poor Captain Atherley!' exclaimed Anne; 'and what could my aunt say?'