"I beg your pardon, mon amie, I did not really think you would resent the first compliment I ever gave you," she laughed, then continued. "I have been hindering you all the time. Where were you going? Out for a walk?"
No sisters ever understood each other better than did these two women, and seldom was it that two ever despised each other more. They had met but seldom before "Mrs. Southey" came to Washington as a southern spy, but well she knew that in the home she sought she would find co-operation. In this she had not been mistaken. Her mission was carefully guarded, but her everyday life underwent careful scrutiny. Her dignity as the 'Mistress of Rosedale' was continually pierced and wounded without mercy, while she remained powerless in the hands of her tormentor. The morning scene we are chronicling was not an exceptional one; still it left the lady in a burning rage. At dinner, however, the hostess met her with many bland excuses for neglecting her so long, thus pressing the thorns deeper that were sorely goading her victim all unconsciously to other eyes. How true that the spirit of evil despises and seeks to lacerate itself when its reflection is seen in the bosom of another!
"I have an invitation for you to take an airing in the elegant turn-out of our pet senator, by the side of his queenly wife, this p.m., at four." The bustling housekeeper said this amid the superintending of the dinner arrangements. "You will go, of course, and so I told the servant who brought in the card. You are looking so pale and thin that I am sure the ride will do you good."
At the hour appointed the carriage stood before the door, and the senator's wife called out pleasantly, as the two ladies appeared in sight, "the air is delicious, Mrs. Southey, and I can fully recommend its sanitary powers, having been cured of an oppressive headache already. You are not looking as well as usual," she continued, as the lady addressed tripped down the stone steps where the footman was waiting to hand her into the carriage.
"Will it reach the heart and conscience and drive out its ailments?" queried the hostess.
The thin lips of Mrs. Southey parted slightly as she threw back a keen glance at the speaker in the doorway. Without apparently noticing it she continued, "If I thought it would I would order a carriage and perform some long-neglected duties."
It was a lovely afternoon, as the senator's wife had reported, and as Mrs. Southey reclined dreamily in one corner of the luxurious barouche, a sensation, almost peaceful, came stealing over her while she listened to the agreeable words of her companion, and felt the cool soft breezes playing about her. For a while, at least, she forgot herself with all the attending perplexities of her situation, in the musical clatter of the horses' hoofs on the hard road. At last she was waked from her reveries as from a dream, by observing the carriage stop in the street and hearing her companion accost some one outside.
"I am happy to meet you," she said; "I have been so anxious about your patient. How is he getting along?"
"Slowly improving," came back the answer.
"Good heavens! That voice!" How the guilty woman trembled! It was that of her only daughter—her Lillian! Did she long to clasp again that form, once so beloved, in her maternal embrace? Why did her cheeks and lips suddenly become chill and pallid? Why should every nerve quiver as she sat there mute with a palsying fear? Ah, she well knew that a pair of large dark eyes were fastened upon her, reading the emotions of her very soul, avoid them as she would! In vain did she endeavor to adjust her veil, which was thoughtlessly thrown back from her face in her dream of peace; but it became entangled with the trimmings of her bonnet, and it was impossible to disengage it. With a sensation of despair she settled back as far as possible among the shadows and painfully waited for the issue.