“Well, I daresay you acted for the best; but it was a heavy blow for me to be told that he was gone—my only brother—almost my only friend.”
“Pray don’t say that, aunt. I hope you know that I love you.”
“My dear, you love me because I am your father’s sister. You consider it your duty to love me. My brother loved me for my own sake. He was a noble-hearted man.”
Miss Fausset and her niece dined together tête-à-tête, and spent the evening quietly on each side of the hearth, with their books and work, the kind of work which encourages pensive brooding, as the needle travels slowly over the fabric.
“I wonder you have no pets, aunt—no favourite dog.”
“I have never cared for that kind of affection, Mildred. I am of too hard a nature, perhaps. My heart does not open itself to dogs and cats, and parrots are my abomination. I am not like the typical spinster. My only solace in the long weary years has been in going among people who are more unhappy than myself. I have put myself face to face with sordid miseries, with heavy life-long burdens; and I have asked myself, What is your trouble compared with these?”
“Dear aunt, it seems to me that your life must have been particularly free from trouble and care.”
“Perhaps, in its outward aspect. I am rich, and I have been looked up to. But do you think those long years of loneliness—the aimless, monotonous pilgrimage through life—have not been a burden? Do you think I have not—sometimes, at any rate—envied other women their children and their husbands—the atmosphere of domestic love, even with its attendant cares and sorrows? Do you suppose that I could live for a quarter of a century as I have lived, and not feel the burden of my isolation? I have made people care for me through their self-interest. I have made people honour me, because I have the means of helping them. But who is there who cares for me, Gertrude Fausset?”
“You cannot have done so much for others without being sincerely loved in return.”
“With a kind of love, perhaps—a love that has been bought.”