‘Pray make him understand that Arthur wanted a change very much, and will not be long gone.’
‘Arthur! You cannot feel for any one else!’
‘I did not mean to be selfish!’ said Violet, sorry for having seemed to be wanting in sympathy.
‘No, indeed! You never think what would become of you left alone, with two babies that cannot walk!’
‘Never mind me, I shall manage very well, I don’t like to have a disturbance made on my account. I cannot think how you can hesitate after such a letter as this.’
‘That is the very thing. He would never have dared to say these things to my face! Now let me tell you. I know I have been much to blame; you made me feel it. You are taming me; and if he leaves me to you I may be more dutiful when he comes back. But if he strains his new notion of authority too far, and if you throw me off, I shall be driven to do what will grieve and disappoint you.’
‘But surely,’ said Violet, ‘it cannot be the right beginning of being dutiful to resist the first thing that is asked of you.’
‘You wish me to go to be fretted and angered! to be without one employment to drown painful thoughts, galled by attempts at controlling me; my mind poisoned by my aunt, chilled by my mother—to be given up to my worse nature, without perhaps even a church to go to!’
‘It is very hard,’ said Violet; ‘but if we are to submit, it cannot be only when we see fit. Would it not be better to make a beginning that costs you something?’
‘And lose my hope of peaceful guidance!’