Augustus hints at some “unpleasant business” you have been engaged in lately. I conclude some controversy, in which you have had to “hold your own” more firmly than usual. Or new “enemies,”—business foes only of course, about which you told me I must never grieve, as they were unavoidable. I do not grieve; you will live down any passing animosity. It will be all smooth sailing by-and-by. But in the meantime, why not tell me? I am not a child—and—I am to be your wife, Max.
Ah, now the thorn is out, the one little sting of pain. It isn't this child you were fond of, this ignorant, foolish, naughty child, it is your wife, whom you yourself chose, to whom you yourself gave her place and her rights, who comes to you with her heart full of love and says, “Max, tell me!”
Now, no more of this, for I have much to tell you—I tell you everything.
You know how quietly this winter has slipped away with us at. Rockmount; how, from the time Penelope returned, she and I seemed to begin our lives anew together, in one sense beginning almost as little children, living entirely in the present; content with each day's work-and each day's pleasure,—and it was wonderful how many small pleasures we found—never allowing ourselves either to dwell on the future or revert to the past. Except when by your desire. I told my sister of Francis's having passed through the Insolvent Court, and how you were hoping to obtain for him a situation as corresponding clerk. Poor Francis! all his grand German and Spanish to have sunk down to the writing of a merchant's business-letters, in a musty Liverpool office! Will he ever bear it? Well, except this time, and once afterwards, his name has never been mentioned, either by Penelope or me.
The second time happened thus—I did not tell you then, so I will now. When our Christmas bills came in—our private ones, my sister had no money to meet them. I soon guessed that—as, from your letter, I had already guessed where her half-yearly allowance had gone. I was perplexed, for though she now confides to me nearly everything of her daily concerns, she has never told me that. Yet she must have known I knew—that you would be sure to tell me.
At last, one morning, as I was passing the door of her room, she called me in.
She was standing before a chest-of-drawers, which, I had noticed, she always kept locked. But to-day the top drawer was open, and out of a small jewel-case that lay on it, she had taken a string of pearls. “You remember this?”
Ah, yes! But Penelope looked steadily at it; so, of course, did I.
“Have you any idea, Dora, what it is worth, or how much Sir William gave for it?”
I knew: for Lisabel had told me herself, in the days when we were all racking our brains to find out suitable marriage presents for the governor's lady.