At this point a third gentleman joined the others, and they moved away, leaving Phoebe in her corner.
Phoebe sat meditating, for nobody had spoken to her, when she felt a soft gloved hand laid upon her arm. She turned, suddenly, to look up into a face which she thought at first was the face of a stranger. Then, in a moment, she knew Gatty Delawarr.
The small-pox had changed her terribly—far more than her sister. No one could think of setting her up for a beauty now. The soft, peach-like complexion, which had been Gatty’s best point, was replaced by a sickly white, pitifully seamed with the scars of the dread disease.
“You did not know me at first,” said Gatty, quietly, as if stating a fact, not making an inquiry.
“I do now,” answered Phoebe, returning Gatty’s smile.
“Well, you see the Lord made a way for me. But it is rather a rough one, Phoebe.”
“I am afraid you must have suffered very much, Mrs Gatty.”
“Won’t you drop the Mistress? I would rather. Well, yes, I suffered, Phoebe; but it was worse since than just then.”
Phoebe’s face, not her tongue, said, “In what manner?”
“’Tis not very pleasant, Phoebe, to have everybody bewailing you, and telling all their neighbours how cruelly you are changed, but I could have stood that. Nor is it delightful to have Molly for ever at one’s elbow, calling one Mrs Baboon, and my Lady Venus, and such like; but I could have stood that, though I don’t like it. But ’tis hard to be told I have disappointed my mother’s dearest hopes, and that she will never take any more pleasure in me; that she would to Heaven I had died in my cradle. That stings sometimes. Then, to know that if one makes the least slip, it will be directly, ‘Oh, your saints are no better than other folks!’ Phoebe, I wish sometimes that I had not recovered.”