Nathanael led her to the sofa, and placed her where Elizabeth could see her easily without turning round.
“Here is my wife! Is she like what you expected, sister?”
The head was raised, but with difficulty; and Agatha met the cheerful, smiling, loving eyes of her whom people called “poor Elizabeth.” Such thorough content, such admiring pleasure, as that look testified! It took away all the painful constraint which most people experience on first coming into the presence of those whom Heaven has afflicted thus; and made Agatha feel that in putting such an angelic spirit into that poor distorted body, Heaven had not dealt hardly even with Elizabeth Harper.
“She is just what I thought,” said a voice, thin, but not unmusical. “You described her well. Come here and kiss me, my dear new sister.”
Agatha knelt down and obeyed, with her whole heart in the embrace. Of all greetings in the family, none had been like this. And not the least of its sweetness was that her husband seemed so pleased therewith, looking more like himself than he had done since they entered his father's doors.
They all sat down and talked for a long time, Elizabeth more cheerfully than any. She appeared completely versed in the affairs of the whole family, as though her mind were a hidden gallery in which were clearly daguerreotyped, and faithfully retained, all impressions of the external world. She seemed to know everybody and everybody's circumstances—to have ranged them and theirs distinctly and in order, in the wide, empty halls of her memory, which could be filled in no other way. For, as Agatha gradually learned, this spinal disease, withering up the form from infancy, had been accompanied with such long intervals of acute physical pain as to prevent all study beyond the commonest acquirements of her sex. It was not with her, as with some, that the intellect alone had proved sufficient to make out of a helpless body a noble and complete human existence; Elizabeth's mind was scarcely above the average order, or if it had been, suffering had stifled its powers. Her only possession was the loving heart.
She asked an infinitude of questions, her bright quick eyes seeming to extort and gain more than the mere verbal answers. She talked a good deal, throwing more light than Agatha had ever before received on the manners, characters, and history of the Harper family, the Dugdales, and Anne Valery. But there was in her speech a certain reticence, as though all the common gossip of life was in her clear spirit received, sifted, purified, and then distributed abroad in chosen portions as goodly and pleasant food. She seemed to receive the secrets of every one's life and to betray none.
Agatha now learnt why there had been such a mystery of regret, reverence, and love hanging over the very mention of the eldest Miss Harper.
When the tumult of this strange day had resolved itself into silence, Agatha, believing her husband fast asleep, lay pondering over it, wondering why he had not asked her what she thought of his family—wondering, above all, what was the strange weight upon him which he tried so hard to conceal, and to appear just the same to every one, especially to her. Her coming life rose up like a great maze, about which all the characters now apparently mingled therein wandered mistily in and out. Among them, those which had gained most vivid individuality in a fancy not prone to catch quick interests, affecting her alternately with a sense of pensive ideal calm, and cheerful healthy human liking, were Elizabeth Harper, the “Missus,” and Duke Dugdale.
Likewise, as an especial pleasure, she had discovered the one to whom she clung as to a well-known friend among all these strangers, lived within eight miles of Kingcombe Holm.