So it was that his aunt fretted and scolded about him to his mother, and made her life a burden to her, but in his presence was quite silent about the matter of his vocation, and much more agreeable and well behaved than in anybody else's presence. And Mrs. Hazard Smatter was quite unable to ask him questions or to gain information from him. Very soon after his arrival, oppressed no doubt by the mediæval murkiness of the atmosphere, and the unfamiliarity of the situation, she quietly gathered up her notes and queries and prepared to wing her way to more speculative regions and a freer air. Even Goneril's tongue was tame when he was by, though she beat and brushed and shook his black habit as if it were the Pope, and harangued about the Inquisition to her fellow-servants by the hour together.
This same black habit was a great snare to Missy. She always spoke of it to her mother as "his costume," as if it had come from Worth's; and it was a good many days before she could be resigned to his walking through the village. She even importuned her mother to beg him to give it up during his visit home.
"In the name of common sense, mamma," she exclaimed, "why need he disedify these country people, over whom he has some influence, by this puerile affectation? What virtue is there in that extra yard or two of cloth? He could save souls in a pea-jacket, I should think, if he were in earnest in the matter."
It was rather hard on Mrs. Varian to have to bear all these criticisms. That she had to bear them came of her natural sweetness and softness, which led every one, beginning with Missy, to dictate to her. But there was something even harder than this, that fell to her share of the oblation. She had to tell Missy of something very bitter, and to endeavor to reconcile her to it. She had prepared herself for it, in many silent hours, but it is hard, always, to give pain, harder, to some natures, than to bear it.
It was one evening, when Missy came to her room for her good-night kiss, that she chose. St. John had gone away to be gone two or three days, and it is probable that the hour had been settled upon for a long while. But prepared as she was, there was a tremble in her voice when she said:
"Come and sit down by me for a little while. I have something to say to you," that made Missy feel, with a sharp tightening across her heart, that there was something painful coming.
She sat down where the light of the lamp did not fall upon her and said, with a forced calmness, as she bent forward to do something to the fire,
"Well, mamma, what is it? If you have anything to say to me, of course it must be nice."
"You don't always think so, I'm afraid, my child," said her mother, with a sigh. "I wish that I might never have anything to tell you that did not give you pleasure."
"Which is equivalent to telling me you have something to tell me that will give me pain. Pray don't mind it. I ought to be used to hearing things I don't like by this time, don't you think I ought?"