Mrs Snow spoke very quietly; she was anxious to hear more; and forgetting her prudence in the pleasure it gave her to unburden her heart to her friend, Graeme went on rapidly,—
“If it only had been any one else, I thought. We didn’t know Fanny very well, then—hardly at all, indeed, and she seemed such a vain, frivolous little thing, so different from what I thought Arthur’s wife should be; and I disliked her stepmother so much more than I ever disliked any one, I think, except perhaps Mrs Page, when we first came to Merleville. Do you mind her first visit with Mrs Merle, Janet?”
“I mind it well,” said Mrs Snow, smiling. “She was no favourite of mine. I daresay I was too hard on her sometimes.”
Graeme laughed at the remembrance of the “downsettings” which “the smith’s wife” had experienced at Janet’s hands in those early days. The pause gave her time to think, and she hastened to turn the conversation from Arthur and his marriage to Merleville and the old times. Janet did not try to hinder it, and answered her questions, and volunteered some new items on the theme, but when there came a pause, she asked quietly,—
“And when was the other time you thought of coming to see us all?”
“Oh! that was before, in the spring. Arthur proposed that we should go to Merleville, but we went to the seaside, you know. It was on my account; I was ill, and the doctor said the sea-breeze was what I needed.”
“The breezes among our hills would have been as good for you, I daresay. I wonder you didn’t come then.”
“Oh! I could not bear the thought of going then. I was ill, and good for nothing. It would have been no pleasure for any one to see me then. I think I should hardly have cared to go away anywhere, if Arthur had not insisted, and the doctor too.”
Unconsciously Graeme yielded to the impulse to say to her friend just what was in her heart.
“But what ailed you?” asked Mrs Snow, looking up with astonished eyes, that reminded Graeme there were some things that could not be told even to her friend.