Meg made no answer. Laura paused a moment longer. It was odd how her heart softened to-night to the "little sister" she had never taken much account of before.
"Let's kiss each other for once!" she said. And Meg surprised, flung both arms round her neck.
"Oh Laura, you do like me just a little then, don't you?" she cried. "And you don't really believe all you've been saying? I do hate it so! I would rather be unhappy all my life, than think that nobody ever gets anything but half-loaves and makeshifts. It is better to be miserable than satisfied like that."
"Oh Lord!" said Laura, who had a trick of strong language. "This comes of trying to put a modicum of common-sense into your head. Go your own way and be miserable, then. Some people do prefer it, I believe!" And Meg got into bed at last, and had a horrible nightmare, in which she was dancing with an angel who discoursed of the regeneration of the world, till suddenly a horror fell on her, and she saw he was the devil in disguise, and fled shrieking to Laura and Uncle Russelthorpe, who were looking on from a corner, and Uncle Russelthorpe chuckled and remarked:—
"Yes; every one has the original old gentleman under his skin; scratch deep enough, and you'll find the savage instinct at the bottom of all our refinements". A speech which Uncle Russelthorpe had really made years before, and which had puzzled Meg's childish brain at the time; but Laura shrugged her square shoulders, and said:—
"My dear, make the best of him; it is what we all do in the end".
Meg's sisters were married from Ravenshill in the pretty month of May.
The bridal party walked through the garden to the chapel under archways of flowers and flags.
Kate looked beautiful; Laura, very unmoved and like her ordinary self, only as they passed under the church door she slid her hand into her sister's and held it tight. Meg, following, saw the action. Kate hardly noticed it; but that was an old story; indeed, it is a story that goes on from generation to generation.
The sunshine shone between clouds, and there was a light spring shower, just sprinkling the procession as it wound between the beds of anemones and daffodils. The drops clung to Meg's soft hair, and glistened there like diamonds through the service.