‘Unknown.—Happily, his honesty and his grief so worked upon my landlady, that she has taken him as an errand boy. So that, in fact, Minerva may be considered to have been the making of his fortune.
‘I leave this for a riddle for the sisters. I am longing to ask Violet who this gentleman is who seems to know all the negroes so well.’ (Scratched out.) ‘What nonsense I have written! I was listening to some letters they were reading from the Mr. Martindale in the West Indies. Violet tells me to finish with her dearest love.
‘Your most affectionate,
‘A. Moss.
‘P.S.—He will come to-morrow to take us to a private view of the Royal Academy, before the pictures are removed.’
The same post carried a letter from Violet to her husband, communicating the arrival of her guests, and telling him she knew that he could not wish her not to have Annette with her for these few days, and that it did make her very happy.
Having done this, she dismissed doubts, and, with a clear conscience, gave herself up to the enjoyment of her sister’s visit, each minute of which seemed of diamond worth. Perhaps the delights were the more intense from compression; but it was a precious reprieve when Arthur’s answer came, rejoicing at Violet’s having a companion, and hoping that she would keep her till his return, which he should not scruple to defer, since she was so well provided for. He had just been deliberating whether he could accept an invitation to the Highlands.
If the wife was less charmed than her sister, she knew that, under any circumstances, she would have had to consent, after the compliment had been paid of asking whether she could spare him; and it was compensation enough that he should have voluntarily extended her sister’s visit.
Annette, formerly the leader of her younger sister, was often pleasantly surprised to find her little Violet become like her elder, and that not only from situation, but in mind. With face and figure resembling Violet’s, but of a less uncommon order, without the beauteous complexion and the natural grace, now enhanced by living in the best society, Annette was a very nice-looking, lady-like girl, of the same refined tone of mind and manners; and having had a longer space of young ladyhood, she had more cultivation in accomplishments and book knowledge, her good taste saving her from being spoilt, even by her acquiescence in Matilda’s superiority. She saw, however, that Violet had more practical reflection, and though in many points simple and youthful, was more of a woman than herself; and it was with that sweet, innocent feeling, which ought not to bear the same name as pride, that she exulted in the superiority of her beloved sister. Selfish jealousies or petty vanities were far from her; it was like a romance to hear Violet describe the splendours of Martindale, or the gaieties of London; and laugh over the confession of the little perplexities as to proprieties, and the mistakes and surprises, which she trusted she had not betrayed.
Still Violet missed the power of fully reciprocating her sister’s confidence. Annette laid open every home interest and thought, but Violet had no right to disclose the subjects that had of late engrossed her, and at every turn found a separation, something on which she must not be communicative.