"Oh! I wish Violet were here!"
Mrs. Vyner understood the wish, and looked delighted.
"One day," she said, with the meekness of a martyr, "she will learn to know me."
It was an exciting scene. Blanche and Rose were affected, as kind hearts always are at any action which bears the stamp of kindness; and Mrs. Vyner was affected, as most people are when they have done a generous action, with a certain inward glow of noble pleasure.
For do not suppose that she remembered at this moment whence the money actually came. Not she. In her excitable mind, the means were lost in the end. She had given the money, she had aroused the gratitude of the two girls, and as far as her feeling of the matter went, she felt just as if the money had been hers. Indeed, so truly was she possessed with this idea, so actually generous did she feel in that moment of excitement, that on opening her purse to take out the notes, she found another ten-pound note beside it, really her own, and taking it also out she said as she presented it,—
"There, you may as well have that too—you will find plenty of use for it—and I shall not miss it. There. Only be happy, and trust in me."
The sudden impulse which led her to do this—to complete as it were the action which she had begun with such applause—to redouble the effect of what had already been created—will be understood by all who have known, and knowing have analyzed, such characters as Mrs. Vyner; to others it will appear a gross inconsistency.
CHAPTER V.
THE CURSE OF IDLENESS.
Or fia dunque giammai, che tu, Ozio, possi esser grato veramente, se non quando succedi a degne occupazioni. L'ozio vile et inerte voglio, che ad un animo generoso sia la maggior fatica, che aver egli possa, se non gli rappresenta dopo lodabile esercizio e lavoro.