“For I must not let her see that I know there must be a cause for this sudden wish for a new life,” said she to herself. If she had done what she longed to do, she would have taken the impatient, troubled child in her arms, and whispered, as Janet had whispered to her that night, so long ago, that the restless fever of her heart would pass away; she would have soothed and comforted her, with tender words, as Janet had not dared to do. She would have bidden her wait, and have patience with herself and her life, till this cloud passed by—this light cloud of her summer morning, that was only mist to make the rising day more beautiful, and not the sign of storm and loss, as it looked to her young, affrighted eyes.
But this she could not do. Even with certain knowledge of the troubles which she only guessed, she knew it would be vain to come to her with tender, pitying words, and worse than vain to try to prove that nothing had happened to her, or was like to happen, that could make the breaking up of her old life, and the beginning of a new one, a thing to be thought of by herself or those who loved her. So, after a few stitches carefully taken, for all her sister could see, she said,—
“And, then, there are so few things that a woman can do.”
The words brought back so vividly that night in the dark, when she had said them out of a sore heart to her friend, that her work fell on her lap again, and she met her sister’s eye with a look that Rose could not understand.
“You are not thinking of what I have been saying. Why do you look at me in that strange way?” said she, pettishly.
“I am thinking of it, indeed. And I did not know that I was looking any other than my usual way. I was saying to myself, ‘Has the poor child got to go through all that for herself, as I have done?’ Oh! Rosie, dear! if I could only give you the benefit of all my vexed thoughts on that very subject!”
“Well, why not? That is just what I want. Only, don’t begin in that discouraging way, about there being so few things a woman can do. I know all that, already.”
“We might go to Norman for a while together, at any rate,” said Graeme, feeling how impossible it would be to satisfy one another by what might be said, since all could not be spoken between them.
“Yes. That is just what I said, at first. And we could see about it there. We could much more easily make our plans, and carry them out there, than here. And, in the meantime, we could find plenty to do in Hilda’s house with the children and all the rest. I wish we could go soon.”
And then she went over what she had often gone over before, the way of life in their brother Norman’s house—Hilda’s housekeeping, and her way with her children, and in society, and so on, Graeme asking questions, and making remarks, in the hope that the conversation might not, for this time, come back to the vexed question, of what women may do in the world. It grew dark in the meantime, but they were waiting for Harry and letters, and made no movement; and, by and by, Rose said, suddenly: