“Old times? What, of misery and poverty and wretchedness, and having servants that you cannot pay, and struggling to keep up appearances, and all for what?”
“Oh, hush, hush, little May!” said Claire, holding her to her breast, and half sadly, half playfully, rocking herself to and fro.
“You don’t know what trouble is. You don’t know what it is to have your tenderest feelings torn. You never knew what it was to suffer as I have. I hate him.”
She could not see Claire’s ghastly face, nor the agonised twitching of the nerves about her lips which her sister was striving to master.
“No one knows what I have had to suffer,” she went on; “and it’s too hard—it’s too hard to bear. No one loves me, no one cares for me. It’s all misery and wretchedness, and—and I wish I was dead.”
“No, no, no, darling,” said Claire, as she drew the sobbing little thing closer to her breast; “don’t say that. I love you dearly, my own sister, and it breaks my heart to see you unhappy. But there, there, you are so weary and ill to-night that it makes everything look so black. I suffer too, darling, for your sake—for all our sakes, and now I will not scold you.”
“Scold me?” cried May, in affright.
“No, not one word; only pray to you to be careful of your dear, sweet little self. My darling, I am so proud of my beautiful little sister. You will not be frivolous again, and give me so much pain?”
“N-no,” sighed May, with her face buried in her sister’s breast.
“Frank—”