Juliet did not mean her life to be just like the lives of the people about her. She was impatient when others sought to control her. She wanted to take her own way, but she never meant that it should be an ignoble way. She had her ideals, though they were all too vague and visionary. She hated selfishness and meanness, and felt a keen sense of injustice whenever her sisters pronounced her selfish. But they could only judge her actions by their shrewd, matter-of-fact observation; they had not the imagination to conceive how different they might appear seen from her point of view.
[CHAPTER VI]
JULIET IS INSPECTED
"MOTHER, do you think it can be anyone belonging to us?" asked Juliet eagerly, when she had told of her meeting with the unknown clergyman that afternoon, and the question he had put to her.
"Oh no, dear! Tracy is not an uncommon name. And yet—it is very strange—your father had a brother who went to Australia; but he has been dead for years—at least, it was always believed that he was dead."
"But it was a mistake—it was a mistake, and he has come back to claim us as his next of kin!" cried Juliet excitedly. "Oh, that's so, I am sure! Of course he is rich, and I shall not need to be a governess—"
"My dear child, how you talk! You quite bewilder me! You forget what a big place Australia is. There may be hundreds of Tracys there. And your father always believed his brother to be dead. To be sure, he went off in a huff, and perhaps wished his relatives to think him dead. His name was Ralph. There were only the two children—your father and he. They were early left orphans, and were brought up by their grandfather. I believe there was some jealousy between them. At any rate, there was a quarrel, and Ralph took himself off; but I never heard the particulars. Your father did not care to speak about it."
"Oh, mother, I can't help thinking that it is my uncle who has returned! How I wish he would make haste and look us up! I could snap my fingers at Hannah and Salome if I had a rich uncle to defend me."
"Juliet! What a way to speak! You really are a very naughty girl."
"Just so. Quite incorrigible. I shall consider it my duty to inform Mrs. Campbell that I shall not make an exemplary instructor of youth."