“You have not told me, Grace,” I resumed, “whether you think Lucy is pleased, or not, with the attentions of this gentleman.”
My sister looked at me intently, for a moment, as if to ascertain how far I could, or could not, ask such a question with indifference. It will be remembered that no verbal explanations had ever taken place between us, on the subject of our feelings towards the companions of our childhood, and that all that was known to either was obtained purely by inference. Between myself and Lucy nothing had ever passed, indeed, which might not have been honestly referred to our long and early association, so far as the rules of intercourse were concerned, though I sometimes fancied I could recall a hundred occasions, on which Lucy had formerly manifested deep attachment for myself; nor did I doubt her being able to show similar proofs, by reversing the picture. This, however, was, or I had thought it to be, merely the language of the heart; the tongue having never spoken. Of course, Grace had nothing but conjecture on this subject, and alas! she had begun to see how possible it was for those who lived near each other to change their views on such subjects; no wonder, then, if she fancied it still easier, for those who had been separated for years.
“I have not told you, Miles,” Grace answered, after a brief delay, “because it would not be proper to communicate the secrets of my friend to a young man, even to you, were it in my power, as it is not, since Lucy never has made to me the slightest confidential communication, of any sort or nature, touching love.”
“Never!” I exclaimed—reading my fancied doom in the startling fact; for I conceived it impossible, had she ever really loved me, that the matter should not have come up in conversation between two so closely united—“Never! What, no girlish—no childish preference—have you never had no mutual preferences to reveal?”
“Never”—answered Grace, firmly, though her very temples seemed illuminated—“Never. We have been satisfied with each other's affection, and have had no occasion to enter into any unfeminine and improper secrets, if any such existed.”
A long, and I doubt not a mutually painful pause succeeded.
“Grace,” said I, at length—“I am not envious of this probable accession of fortune to the Hardinges, but I think we should all have been much more united—much happier—without it.”
My sister's colour left her face, she trembled all over, and she became pale as death.
“You may be right, in some respects, Miles,” she answered, after a time. “And, yet, it is hardly generous to think so. Why should we wish to see our oldest friends; those who are so very dear to us, our excellent guardian's children, less well off than we are ourselves? No doubt, no doubt, it may seem better to us, that Clawbonny should be the castle and we its possessors; but others have their rights and interests as well as ourselves. Give the Hardinges money, and they will enjoy every advantage known in this country—more than money can possibly give us—why, then, ought we to be so selfish as to wish them deprived of this advantage? Place Lucy where you will, she will always be Lucy; and, as for Rupert, so brilliant a young man needs only an opportunity, to rise to anything the country possesses!”
Grace was so earnest, spoke with so much feeling, appeared so disinterested, so holy I had almost said, that I could not find, in my heart, the courage to try her any farther. That she began to distrust Rupert, I plainly saw, though it was merely with the glimmerings of doubt. A nature as pure as her's, and a heart so true, admitted with great reluctance, the proofs of the unworthiness of one so long loved. It was evident, moreover, that she shrunk from revealing her own great secret, while she had only conjectures to offer in regard to Lucy; and even these she withheld, as due to her sex, and the obligations of friendship. I forgot that I had not been ingenuous myself, and that I made no communication to justify any confidence on the part of my sister. That which would have been treachery in her to say, under this state of the case, might have been uttered with greater frankness on my own part. After a pause, to allow my sister to recover from her agitation, I turned the discourse to our own more immediate family interests, and soon got off the painful subject altogether.