"Well, my dear," was the comment of Miss Claghorn, "I have listened to your story and justify your course; and now I repeat my invitation."
Had Tabitha Cone seen the gracious manner of the speaker she would have been as surprised as was the lady herself. But in the presence of this beautiful face, the evident honesty of the narration of the tale she had heard, the underlying sadness beneath the serene expression, it would have needed a harder nature than Miss Claghorn's to be anything but gracious. But she flushed with self-reproach when Natalie touched upon what she had for the moment completely forgotten.
"But," exclaimed Natalie, "I have not answered the question in your letter. The matter of religion, I was led to believe, would be to you most important. It is to so many; the Marquise, Père Martin, Mrs. Leon—have all been grieved—I am an infidel."
The coolness with which this statement was made shocked her auditor even more than the fact. The perplexed smile upon the girl's face; the yearning look, that seemed to recognize something wanting in her, some faculty absent which left her without a clew to the cause of the successive shocks emanating from her—these things, if only dimly appreciated by Miss Claghorn, were sufficiently apparent to make her feel as though a weight had fallen upon her heart. "Oh, my child, that is an awful thing to say!" she exclaimed.
The way the words were uttered showed that all the tenderness, long hidden, of the speaker's nature was suddenly called to life. No exhortation ever heard by Natalie had so affected her as this outburst of a hard old woman. She seized the other's hand, murmuring, "Dear Aunt!" She pitied, even while she envied, the victim of superstition, as the God-fearing woman pitied the errant soul. Neither understood the source of the other's emotion, but they met in complete sympathy. The elder woman pressed the hand that had grasped her own, and leaning toward her grand-niece, kissed her affectionately. What old and long-dried springs of feeling were awakened in the withered breast as the oldest descendant of the Puritan preacher yearned over the youngest of the line? Who shall tell? Perhaps the barren motherhood of the ancient spinster was stirred for once; perhaps the never-known craving for a mother's love moved the younger one. For a time both were silent.
"Come to me to-day, at once," whispered Miss Achsah, blushing, had she known it, and quivering strangely.
The heartiness of the invitation troubled the visitor, whose answer was less gracious than a chief characteristic required. "I will come to-day," she answered. "Let it be understood as a visit only." Then she went out, and in the lumbering carriage was driven back to Hampton.
Miss Claghorn watched her from the window. Gradually she was recovering herself and secretly feeling mightily ashamed, yet pleased, too. Tabitha came in.
"Well?" she asked.
"Well," echoed Miss Claghorn, acidly.