‘Then he was a tall youth, and we were silly girls,’ said Lilias; ‘he avoided Miss Middleton, and we were always with her. He was good-natured, but he could not get on with us; he did very well with the little ones, but we were of the wrong age. He and William and Eleanor were one faction, we were another, and you were between both—he was too old, too sublime, too good, too grave for us.’
‘Too grave!’ said Claude; ‘I never heard a laugh so full of glee, except, perhaps, Phyllis’s.’
‘The last time he was at home,’ continued Lily, ‘we began to know him better; there was no Miss Middleton in the way, and after you and William were gone, he used to walk with us, and read to us. He read Guy Mannering to us, and told us the story of Sir Maurice de Mohun; but the loss was not the same to us as to you elder ones; and then sorrow was almost lost in admiration, and in pleasure at the terms in which every one spoke of him. Claude, I have no difficulty in not wishing it otherwise; he is still my brother, and I would not change the feeling which the thought of his death gives me—no, not for himself in life and health.’
‘Ah!’ sighed Claude, ‘you have no cause for self-reproach—no reason to lament over “wasted hours and love misspent.”’
‘You will always talk of your old indolence, as if it was a great crime,’ said Lily.
‘It was my chief temptation,’ said Claude. ‘As long as we know we are out of the path of duty it does not make much difference whether we have turned to the right hand or to the left.’
‘Was it Harry’s death that made you look upon it in this light?’ said Lily.
‘I knew it well enough before,’ said Claude, ‘it was what he had often set before me. Indeed, till I came home, and saw this place without him, I never really knew what a loss he was. At Eton I did not miss him more than when he went to Oxford, and I did not dwell on what he was to papa, or what I ought to be; and even when I saw what home was without him, I should have contented myself with miserable excuses about my health, if it had not been for my confirmation; then I awoke, I saw my duty, and the wretched way in which I had been spending my time. Thoughts of Harry and of my father came afterwards; I had not vigour enough for them before.’
Here they reached the house, and parted—Claude, ashamed of having talked of himself for the first time in his life, and Lily divided between shame at her own folly and pleasure at Claude’s having thus opened his mind.
Jane, who was most in fault, escaped censure. Her father was ignorant of her improper speech. Emily forgot it, and it was not Claude’s place to reprove his sisters, though to Lily he spoke as a friend. It passed away from her mind like other idle words, which, however, could not but leave an impression on those who heard her.