“No, indeed! You thought it deformity! Oh, no, no! she was so beautiful.”
“That she is still. I never saw my sister so much struck with any one. There is something so striking in her bright glance out of those clear eyes.”
“Ah! if you had only seen her bloom before—”
“The accident?”
“I burnt her,” said Alison, almost inaudibly.
“You! you, poor dear! How dreadful for you.”
“Yes, I burnt her,” said Alison, more steadily. “You ought not to be kind to me without knowing about it. It was an accident of course, but it was a fit of petulance. I threw a match without looking where it was going.”
“It must have been when you were very young.”
“Fourteen. I was in a naughty fit at her refusing to go to the great musical meeting with us. We always used to go to stay at one of the canon’s houses for it, a house where one was dull and shy; and I could not bear going without her, nor understand the reason.”
“And was there a reason?”