The foster-sisters

by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

"Besides, it would be only a chance!" said I. "Do you not see, that Sir Julius says he may have other and higher views for his daughter?"

"Let us say no more at present, my children!" said Mrs. Deborah. "But take time to think. Mr. Cheriton, you are much in need of refreshment. Lucy, will you order something? Amabel, my love, you had better retire to your room and compose your spirits. We will talk of this matter again."

But a sad interval was to pass before the matter was again discussed. We had not yet separated, when Jenny came in all haste to say, that Mrs. Chloe had fallen into a fainting-fit, and her woman could not bring her to, with all she could do.

"It was just that grinning fool Richard!" said Jenny in great wrath. "He must come in with a basket of sticks, for Mrs. Chloe wanted a bright fire, and what must he do, but congratulate her on the happy news as he called it, and when Mrs. Chloe asked what it meant, he said master was married to Lady Throckmorton, and poor Mrs. Chloe, she just gave one mournful cry and sunk back like one dead."

All these particulars were given to us, for Mrs. Deborah had hurried to her sister. Poor Mrs. Chloe came out of her fainting-fit, only to have a dreadful bleeding from her lungs. An express was sent in all haste for the doctor, and another for Mrs. Philippa—Mrs. Brown, I should say. The doctor did not arrive till night, and then gave no hopes. Mrs. Chloe survived about a week, and then passed quietly away, in the comfort of a reasonable, religious, and holy hope. I suppose she could not have lived long at any rate; but there is no doubt that the news of her brother's marriage to a woman whom she disliked, and with the best of reasons, hastened her end. She gave Mrs. Deborah written directions as to the disposition of her affairs, and said that she had made her will, which was in the hands of Mr. Thirlwall, the family lawyer and man of business at Newcastle. I had supposed as much, knowing that he had paid her several visits during the winter.

An express had been sent to Sir Julius, as soon as Mrs. Chloe's case had been pronounced hopeless, and he arrived in time for the funeral without his wife, who he said was unfit for such a hasty journey.

I am not apt to take impressions at first sight. But when I do, though I may sometimes change them for awhile, I am very apt to return to them. My first sight of Sir Julius' picture, led me to think him a vain man, at once weak and obstinate. I have never seen cause to change my opinion.

Sir Julius greeted his sister with a great show of cordiality, but withal, much as if he had been an impudent lad caught robbing an orchard and determined to brave it out. He was very gracious to Amabel, and more condescending to me than I thought there was any call for, seeing that my family was as good as his own or better, and that he had all these years been pocketing the rents from my poor father's little estate of Black Lees. (So I had learned from Mrs. Chloe, though forgot to mention it in the right place.) However, I was determined to bear everything for Amabel's sake.

He could not well find fault with the arrangements for the funeral, seeing that Mrs. Chloe had ordered them all herself; but he frowned at the needless expense, as he called it, of giving new frieze coats to the poor men in the alm-houses, and new gray gowns to the old women; and swore roundly, when he heard that Mrs. Chloe had ordered Mr. Cheriton to officiate at her funeral, "that he would not have the canting Methodist enter his house."

"There will be no occasion for him to do so, since he will meet my poor sister's corpse at the church-yard!" replied Mrs. Deborah calmly. "Let me advise you, brother, to swear no rash oaths. There has been harm enough done that way in this family."