Chapter One.
The last Night in the Old Home.
“Which speaks the truth - fair Hope or ghastly Fear?
God knoweth, and not I.
Only, o’er both, Love holds her torch aloft,
And will, until I die.”
“Fiddle-de-dee! Do give over snuffing and snivelling and sobbing, and tell me if you want your warm petticoat in the saddle-bag. You’d make a saint for to swear!” More sobs, and one or two disjointed words, were all that came in answer. The sobbing sister, who was the younger of the pair, wore widow’s mourning, and was seated in a rocking-chair near the window of a small, but very comfortable parlour. Her complexion was pale and sallow, her person rather slightly formed, and her whole appearance that of a frail, weak little woman, who required perpetual care and shielding. The word require has two senses, and it is here used in both. She needed it, and she exacted it.
The elder sister, who stood at the parlour door, was about as unlike the younger as could well be. She was quite a head taller, rosy-cheeked, sturdily-built, and very brisk in her motions. Disjointed though her sister’s words were, she took them up at once.
“You’ll have your thrum hat, did you say? (Note 1.) Where’s the good of crying over it? You’ve got ne’er a thing to cry for.”
Another little rush of sobs replied, amid which a quick ear could detect the words “unfeeling” and “me a poor widow.”
“Unfeeling, marry!” said the elder sister. “I’m feeling a whole warm petticoat for you. And tears won’t ward off either cramp or rheumatism, my dear—don’t think it; but a warm petticoat may. Will you have it, or no?”
“Oh, as you please!” was the answer, in a tone which might have suited arrangements for the speaker’s funeral.
“Then I please to put it in the saddle-bag,” cheerily responded the elder. “Lettice, come with me, maid. I can find thee work above in the chamber.”