The hidden treasure

by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

ANNE AT HOME.

Jack had hoped his explanation with Anne would have cleared up matters between them; but to his sorrow, he found their intercourse was more constrained, and on a more uncomfortable footing, than ever. Anne's treatment of him had heretofore been rather negative than positive. She had avoided all private conversation with her brother, and had kept him at a distance; but that was all. Now, however, she was absolutely unkind and harsh, and that in a very vexatious way. She treated him with that sort of contempt so hard for young persons to bear.

Jack was naturally fond of talking about his life and experiences in the country, and his father and Cicely liked to hear him; but Anne took special pains to show that she felt no interest in the matter. She constantly contradicted him, put wrong constructions on all he said and did, and seemed to find special pleasure in speaking slightingly of his most revered friends, Master Fleming and Sir William Leavett.

Jack turned the tables on her one day by remarking on her inconsistency: "You are shocked at my father for finding fault with the pride and luxury of the prior, and the rapacity of Father Joseph, because, forsooth, you say we ought to reverence the clergy and not to criticise them; but I do not see why you are not just as bad yourself. Sir William is a priest, and an old priest as well; and one whom every one allows to be a man of most saintly life and conversation. Why is it not as irreverent in you to find fault with Sir William as it is in my father to laugh at the prior?"

Anne had no answer ready, but she was not the more amiable on that account. In general, it must be confessed that considering his naturally hasty temper, Jack bore his sister's treatment with wonderful patience. Sometimes, indeed, he would show a flash of the old fire, and turn on Anne sharply enough: but he was always sorry when he was tempted to do so, for it did Anne no good and only burdened his own conscience. Both Master Fleming and Madam Barbara counselled him to patience and forbearance.

"You cannot tell what is working in Anne's mind," said Madam Barbara. "The poor girl is very unhappy, of that I am sure; and it is her unhappiness which makes her so fretful."

"She need not visit her unhappiness on my poor father," said Jack. "That does not make her feel any better."

"No, it is the last way in which to find comfort," replied Madam Barbara; "but it is very common conduct nevertheless."

In truth Anne was very unhappy, and that for more reasons than one. She would have repudiated the charge with indignation, if any one had told her she was jealous and envious of her brother; but such was nevertheless the case. Anne had, in fact, a great conceit of herself. Whether consciously or not, she cherished the idea that she was altogether superior to the other members of her family.

The childish fancy for playing at nun, had been considered as a wonderful instance of a vocation for a religious life in so young a child, and she was praised and petted for it accordingly, not only by her mother and her gossips, but by the nuns in the convent where she was sent to be educated at her mother's express desire. Anne found her convent life exactly suited to her taste. She had a good voice and a fine taste in music. She was naturally religious and had an especial bent toward ceremonial observances; and she was constantly held up as an example to the other pupils in the convent. Her opinion was already appealed to and considered of weight in the matters of decorations and music for festival occasions, and she was always put forward to sing at public services. She was constantly spoken of in her own hearing, as a young person of singular piety and talent, and one likely to rise to a high place in the sisterhood; for her taking the veil was considered by herself and others as a settled matter.