“A little, my dear!”
“And—and disappointed?” murmured Violet timidly.
Miss Letty paused before replying. Then she took the girl’s hand in her own and patted it tremblingly.
“Well—I won’t be a humbug about it, child!” she said with a faint smile—“I am disappointed. Yes. I don’t know why I should be, but I am.”
“He is a very nice-looking boy,” said Violet soothingly. “It is only his manner that seems so curt and ungracious. But all English boys are like that, I think, and he is at an awkward age.”
Miss Letty shook her head.
“Yes—that may be,” she said. “But it is not his manner, Violet,—it is his heart! That is what frets me. It is the sweet little heart of the child I loved so much!—that heart is gone, Violet! Quite gone!—there is something withered and hard in its place that is not a heart at all—the heart has gone!”
Violet was silent.
“The heart has been killed in him,” went on Miss Letty regretfully—“it has been crushed out of him. There is no warmth—no brightness of feeling in that starved little soul! He is not to blame. It is the fault of his bringing-up. I am very sorry for him—very! Poor Boy!”
She sat quiet for a few minutes, trying to control the little nervous trembling which, like a cold ague, now and then shook her thin and delicate frame,—then she said suddenly,—