“Philip Dexter has no business to talk of any of our relations at all,” said Lettice loftily.
“Not even about how old they are?” said Nina.
“No, not even that,” replied Lettice, though, in spite of herself, a little smile crept round her mouth.
Then the two girls stood still for a moment, and from the highest point of the terrace gazed out in silence on the lovely view before them. The fertile valley at their feet, the gently rising ground beyond, and far in the distance the lofty mountains, with their everlasting crown of snow; and over all the intensity of blue sky—the blue sky of the south, glowing and gleaming like a turquoise furnace.
“How beautiful it is!” said Nina.
“Yes,” replied Lettice, “I suppose it is. But I shall never care for that kind of sunshine and blue sky again, Nina. I would rather have it grey and cloudy. It is such a mockery. It seems as if nature were so heartless to smile and shine like that when we are, oh, so miserable!”
“I like clouds, too, some clouds, better than that all blue,” agreed Nina. “There is no mystery, no behind, in that sky. It doesn’t make me feel nearer heaven.”
And then they turned and went in again, for it was but seldom they both together left their mother for even so short a time.
Mrs Morison was dying, and she knew it. She had been ill for more than a year, but only since coming to spend a winter in the south had her malady assumed a hopeless form. It was not consumption, for which she was more than thankful for her children’s sake. Indeed, it had been the result of over-exerting herself in attendance on her husband, whose death was the consequence of an accident on horseback some years previously. There had been a hope that the change of climate and the peculiarly soothing effect on the nervous system of the air of Esparto might have at least arrested the progress of her disease; but this hope had been of short continuance. For herself she was resigned, and more than resigned, to die; but, for long, the thought of leaving her children had caused a terrible struggle. But with decrease of physical strength had come increase of moral force, and above all, spiritual faith. She could trust God for herself, why not as fully for those far dearer to her than herself? And slowly but surely she had learnt to do so, thankful for such mitigation of the sorrow as had come by its gradual approach, which gave her time to prepare her elder daughters for what would be before them when they should have to face life without her. To endeavour, too, to undo certain prejudices which they had, not unnaturally, imbibed from their father, and even at one time from herself—prejudices which she now saw to have been exaggerated, which she had always in her heart felt to be unchristian.
But, alas! prejudice and dislike are seeds more easily sown than uprooted, for they grow apace, and, with a sigh, Mrs Morison realised that, as regarded Lettice, above all, she must leave this trouble, with many others, in wiser hands.