“How you talk, child!”
“Good gracious, aunt! what do you think my tongue was given to me for, except to talk?” asked the young lady. And so on, and so on, till Heather, sometimes amused, but far oftener wearied, would entreat Mrs. Black to take Bessie away with her, to which little ruse Bessie lent herself, not unwillingly, throwing back a look at Mrs. Dudley, which said, as plainly as a look could say, “You would let me stay, if it were not to get rid of her.”
“How can you think of allowing those people to pester you as they do?” this was Miss Hope; “you are far too amiable; if I were mistress here, you would see whether they should torment me. I would make use of them instead. Each of the aunts should have one of the girls constantly with her on a visit, and Mr. Black and Mr. Ormson should take the two boys into their respective offices. The boys do not wish to be with their uncles, is that what you say? Well, Heather, I really do wonder at your weakness. What have the boys’ wishes to do in the matter? Is Arthur to keep them for ever? Are they never to go out into the world, and try to earn an honest living? Are you to have your house full of another woman’s children all your life, and be worried to death with them?”
“Please not to talk like that, Miss Hope,” Heather said, piteously; “the children must go some day, I know, but without them Berrie Down will never seem the same Berrie Down to me.”
“Do you mean to say you like having them here?” Miss Hope inquired, with a gradual crescendo.
“You do not know what they have been to me,” Heather answered, the colour coming up into her face, as it always did when she was either excited or distressed. “They have been assistants, comforters, companions, friends! As for Alick”—here the sweet, low voice faltered—“he has been my very right hand; he has thought for me, worked for me. I have had but to wish a thing, and if Alick heard, and it were possible to accomplish, I never wished vainly. He is going: it is right he should. I have striven for him to go; but I shall feel lost without him. Already it is to me as though some one in the house were dying.”
Miss Hope solaced herself with a chocolate cream at this point. As some people take snuff, so Arthur Dudley’s aunt took chocolate. Apparently it stimulated her thoughts, for she said:
“You are an original, if ever there were one.”
“Do you think I do not mean what I say?” asked Heather, uncertain what the observation implied. “Do you think I do not love my husband’s brothers and sisters? Do you imagine any woman ever found such brothers and sisters before—such bright, willing helpers—such unselfish, loving, cheerful boys and girls?”
“I think, my dear, any person who could not be happy with you could not be happy with any one. You certainly are a very sweet creature—don’t blush, or, yes, rather do, it is becoming to you. I saw a face exactly like yours in a studio at Rome last year. Did you ever know an artist of the name of Whiteman? No?—ah! then he could not have fallen in love with you in years gone by, and he making money out of your beauty now. What did that murmur mean?—that you are not beautiful? Stuff! Excuse me, but it is stuff! I suppose you will allow that I know a pretty face when I see it? and I declare you are beautiful—twenty times more so than that Bessie Ormson, whom I should not have in the house an hour, if I were in your shoes.”