Mary Hughes blinded her eyes with tears over this letter, and in her unhappiness lent it to anyone who cared to see it. And her strong-minded but more reticent sister, when she found out what she was doing, angrily called her a fool for her pains, and tore the letter to pieces before her face. But not before it had been heard of by Mr. Carr. For one, who happened to get hold of it, reported the contents to him.
CHAPTER VIII.
BETSEY TRAVICE.
They were grouped together in Mrs. Arkell's sitting-room, their faces half-indistinct in the growing twilight. Mrs. Arkell herself, doing nothing as usual; Mildred by her side, sewing still, although Mrs. Arkell had told her she was trying her eyes; Charlotte Travice, with a flush upon her face and a nervous movement of the restless foot—signs of anger suppressed, to those who knew her well; and a stranger, a young lady, whom you have not seen before.
Had anyone told you this young lady and Charlotte were sisters, you had disputed the assertion, so entirely dissimilar were they in all ways. A quiet little lady, this, of twenty years, with a smooth, fair face, somewhat insipid, for all its good sense; light blue eyes, truthful as Charlotte's were false; small features, and light hair, worn plainly. Perhaps what might have struck a beholder as the most prominent feature in Betsey Travice was her excessive natural meekness; nay, humility would be the better word. She was meek in mind, in temper, in look, in manner, in speech; humble always. She sat there at the fire, her black bonnet laid beside her, for the girl had felt cold after her journey, and the fire was more welcome to her than the going upstairs to array herself for attraction would have been to Charlotte. The weather was very cold for the close of April, and the coach—it was a noted circumstance in its usual punctuality—had been half an hour behind its time. She sat there, sipping the hot cup of tea that Tring had brought her, declining to eat, and feeling miserably uncomfortable, as she saw that, to one at least, she was not welcome.
That one was her sister. Mrs. Arkell had kept the secret well; and not until the evening of the arrival—but an hour, in fact, before the coach was expected in—was Charlotte told of it.
"Tring, or somebody, has been putting two pillows upon my bed," remarked Charlotte, who had run up to her bedroom to get a book. "I wonder what that's for."
"You are going to have a bedfellow to-night, my dear," said Mrs. Arkell.
"A bedfellow!" echoed Charlotte, in wonder. "Who is it?"