At this, there was such a howl of indignation that Algitha remonstrated.
“We shall be heard, if you don’t take care,” she warned.
“My dear Algitha, there are a dozen empty rooms between us and the inhabited part of the house, not to mention the fact that we are a storey above everyone except the ghosts, so I think you may compose yourself.”
However, the excited voices were hushed a little as the discussion continued. One of the chief charms of the institution, in the eyes of the members of the Society, was its secrecy. The family, though united by ties of warm affection to their parents, did not look for encouragement from them in this direction. Mr. Fullerton was too exclusively scientific in his bent of thought, to sympathize with the kind of speculation in which his children delighted, while their mother looked with mingled pride and alarm at these outbreaks of individuality on the part of her daughters, for whom she craved the honours of the social world. In this out-of-the-way district, society smiled upon conformity, and glared vindictively at the faintest sign of spontaneous thinking. Cleverness of execution, as in music, tennis, drawing, was forgiven, even commended; but originality, though of the mildest sort, created the same agonizing disturbance in the select circle, as the sight of a crucifix is wont to produce upon the father of Evil. Yet by some freak of fortune, the whole family at Dunaghee had shewn obstinate symptoms of individuality from their childhood, and, what was more distressing, the worst cases occurred in the girls.
In the debate just recorded, that took place on Algitha’s twenty-second birthday, Ernest had been Hadria’s principal opponent, but the others had also taken the field against her.
“You have the easier cause to champion,” she said, when there was a momentary lull, “for all your evidences can be pointed to and counted; whereas mine, poor things—pale hypotheses, nameless peradventures—lie in forgotten churchyards—unthought of, unthanked, untrumpeted, and all their tragedy is lost in the everlasting silence.”
“You will never make people believe in what might have been,” said Algitha.
“I don’t expect to.” Hadria was standing by the window looking out over the glimmering fields and the shrouded white hills. “Life is as white and as unsympathetic as this,” she said dreamily. “We just dance our reel in our garret, and then it is all over; and whether we do the steps as our fancy would have them, or a little otherwise, because of the uneven floor, or tired feet, or for lack of chance to learn the steps—heavens and earth, what does it matter?”
“Hadria!” exclaimed an astonished chorus.
The sentiment was so entirely unlike any that the ardent President of the Society had ever been known to express before, that brothers and sisters crowded up to enquire into the cause of the unusual mood.