‘Ah! Miss Jane, there will be another confirmation some day; it was a sad thing you were too ill, to be sure, but—’
‘Oh! if I had—if he would not say—if he had thought me fit.’
Esther was amazed, and asked if she should call Miss Weston, who was now with Lilias.
‘No, no!’ cried Jane, nearly relapsing into hysterics. ‘She shall not see me in this state.’
Esther hardly knew what to do, but she tried to soothe and comfort her by following what was evidently the feeling predominating in Jane’s mind, as indicated by her broken sentences, and said, ‘It was a pity, to be sure, that Mr. Devereux came and talked so long, he could not know of your being so very weak, Miss Jane.’
‘Yes,’ said Jane, faintly, ‘I could have borne it better if he had waited a few days.’
‘Yes, Miss, when you had not been so very ill. Mr. Devereux is a very good gentleman, but they do say he is very sharp.’
‘He means to be kind,’ said Jane, ‘but I do not think he has much consideration, always.’
‘Yes, Miss Jane, that is just what Mrs. White said, when—’
Esther’s speech was cut short by the entrance of Miss Weston. Jane started up, dashed off her tears, and tried to look as usual, but the paleness of her face, and the redness of her eyes, made this impossible, and she was obliged to lie down again. Esther left the room, and Miss Weston did not feel intimate enough with Jane to ask any questions; she gave her some sal volatile, talked kindly to her of her weakness, and offered to read to her; all the time leaving an opening for confidence, if Jane wished to relieve her mind. The book which lay near her accounted, as she thought, for her agitation, and she blamed herself for having judged her harshly as deficient in feeling, now that she found her so much distressed, because illness had prevented her confirmation. Under this impression she honoured her reserve, while she thought with more affection of Lily’s open heart. Jane, who never took, or expected others to take, the most favourable view of people’s motives, thought Alethea knew the cause of her distress, and disliked her the more, as having witnessed her humiliation.