"I never knew any one with such odd notions as Amy," said Margaret, when her cousin was gone. "I never can make out how old she is. Sometimes she seems so much younger than we are, and then again she gets into a grave mood, and talks just as if she were twenty."
"But it is very easy to ask her her age, is it not?" asked the matter-of-fact Miss Cunningham.
"Do you always think persons just the age they call themselves?" said
Margaret, laughing.
"Yes, of course, I do, every one, that is except one of my aunts, who always tells me she is seven-and-twenty, when mamma knows she is five-and-thirty."
"What I mean," said Margaret, "is, that all persons appear different at different times."
"They don't to me," answered Miss Cunningham, shortly. "If I am told a girl is fourteen, I believe her to be fourteen; and if I am told she is twelve, I believe she is twelve. Your cousin is twelve, is she not?"
Margaret saw it was useless to discuss the subject any more; and, calling to Amy that they should be late for dinner if they stayed any longer, hastened out of the chapel. Amy lingered behind, with the uncomfortable feeling of having something disagreeable associated with a place which once had brought before her nothing but what was delightful. Margaret and Miss Cunningham had seemed perfectly indifferent to what she thought so solemn; and although quite aware that their carelessness did not at all take away from the real sacredness of the chapel, yet it was something new and startling to find that it was possible for persons to enter a place peculiarly dedicated to the service of God without any greater awe than they would have felt in their own homes.
If Amy had lived longer and seen more of the world, she would have known that, unhappily, such thoughtlessness is so common as not to be remarkable; but she had passed her life with those who thought very differently; and the first appearance of irreverence was as painful as it was unexpected.
CHAPTER IX.
The thought of being probably obliged again to meet Mrs Harrington, soon made Amy forget her painful feelings in the chapel; and during the whole of dinner her eye turned anxiously to the door, and her ear caught every sound in the passage, in the dread lest her aunt should enter; and she ate what was placed before her almost unconsciously, without attending to anything that was said.