"Yes, madam," sighed Flora, who seemed to be intent on a book, though she held it upside down.
"How cool—how composed you are!"
"Less so, perhaps, than I seem," replied Flora, who felt that tears were suffusing her eyes.
"Young ladies took these matters very differently in my time: but since this revolution in France, manners are strangely altered. (Here we may mention that the epoch referred to was now superseding the Union in Lady Rohallion'a mind.) Tears!" she continued; "I am glad to see them, at least for your own sake."
"They are not for my own sake, Lady Rohallion, but for the sake of poor Quentin, who has fallen under the displeasure of you all, and who, through my unwitting means, has—has—become——"
"What?"
"Homeless, friendless, and alone! Oh, it must be so sad to be alone in the world—all alone!"
Lady Winifred lowered her eyes, and her irritation passed rapidly away.
She had somewhat changed since that stormy night on which we first introduced her to the reader, and had altered, as people do with increasing years, so as to be at times—shall we say it?—almost selfish in much that related to her own immediate hearth and household, and more especially in all that concerned the still more selfish Cosmo, on whom she doted, and in whom she could see no imperfection. Yet she could not but reproach herself bitterly when thinking of Quentin Kennedy, and the harsh, cutting words he had overheard.
Then as his smiling, loving, and handsome face came vividly in memory before her, she would ask of herself, "Is it thus, Winifred Rohallion, you have treated the strange orphan, the helpless child once, the mere lad now, who was cast by fate, misfortune, and the waves of that bleak November sea, years ago, at your door and at your mercy? Was it generous to cast forth upon the cold world the friendless, poor, and penniless youth, who loves you—ay, even as your own son never loved you? And what answer is to be given if, at some future day, his mother, who may be living yet, should come hither and demand him of you—you who stung and galled his proud spirit by taunts, upbraiding and unmerited reproach?" And so she would whisper and think what she dared not say aloud; though "perhaps the lowest of our whispers may reach eternity, for it is not very far from any of us, after all."