“But, Rosa, you will not try to stop it?” Rosa hesitated. Even supposing Hugh entirely faithful, what doubtful happiness lay before her sister; and, if not, what a blank of disappointment, what hopeless injury, what misery how unendurable to the girl who shrank and trembled at a harsh word!
Rosa sat upright and gazed straight before her, while Violante watched, unable to understand her face.
“No!” at length she exclaimed, “you must take your chance with the rest of us. How can I or anyone help it? But—but—I’ll never stop anyone’s love—oh, my little darling, my little darling!” and Rosa broke down into tears, hiding her face in the girl’s soft hair.
“Rosa, you think I could not bear any trouble; but I could—for him.”
There was a new fervour in her voice, and Rosa yielded to it. “Oh, I hope you will be happy,” she said.
“Why, you see I am happy!” said Violante, with a childish laugh. “Father is late; let us have some coffee—you are so hot and tired, I will get it. There is no terrible opera to-night. Maddalena! Maddalena!”
“Ah! signorina, I know who nearly broke the china bowl.”
“Why, I did, Maddalena! I threw it down,” said Violante, as she tripped about after the old woman, whose gold hair-pins were quivering with sly triumph. “But it is quite safe—not a crack in it.”
The coffee was finished; the bright, hot sun went down; and the sisters sat long by the open window in the warm, pleasant twilight. Violante fell into dreamy silence; Rosa also. But there was a great gulf between their meditations, though they were thinking of the same subject and, partly, of the same person.
“There’s father!” cried Violante, as a step sounded. “Oh, I will run away, and you shall tell him.”