She placed it in my hands without a word, looking at me intently the while, as if questioning me with her eyes.
“That is Linny Hallett’s chain,” I said. “She made that guard herself, of her own hair. How did it come here?”
“Mr Lister dropped it, I suppose,” she said, with a look of scorn flashing from her eyes. “It was found by one of my servants in the hall after he was gone, and brought to me. I had forgotten it, Antony, until now.”
There was again a deep silence in the room, but at last she broke it with an eager question.
“Tell me about this Linny Hallett,” she said. “You have often told me that she is pretty. Is she good?”
“Oh yes, I am sure she is,” I said; “but she is weak and wilful, and she must have loved Mr Lister very much to turn as she has from so true a brother as Mr Hallett.”
“And—Mr Hallett—is he a good brother to her?”
“Good brother!” I exclaimed, my admiration for my friend carrying me away; “he is all that is noble and patient and good. Poor Hallett! he is more like a father to Linny than a brother, and then his patience with his poor mother! Oh, Miss Carr, I wish you knew him, too!”
She darted an inquiring look at me and then turned away her head, speaking no more, but listening intently as I told her of poor Hallett’s patience under misfortune, relating the story again of his noble sacrifice of self to keep those who were dear to him; of the anxiety Linny caused him, and of his tenderness of the unreasonable invalid he made his care.