“I have said and done all I can for the present,” she said to herself; “I must leave it now. I would not have our last days together disturbed by what, after all, is not a vital matter. Lettice is too good and true to stand out should circumstances show her she is wrong.”
For Lettice was good and true, unselfish and devoted, eager to do right, but with the eagerness and self-confidence of an untried warrior, knowing nought of the battle and thinking she knew all, satisfied as to the temper and perfection of the untested weapons in her possession, full of prejudice and one-sidedness while she prided herself on her fairness and width of judgment.
But self and its opinions were kept much in the background during the few days that followed the morning I have been telling you of. Very calm and peaceful days they were, very sweet and blessed to look back upon in afterlife; for their calm was undisturbed by any misgiving that they might be the last—nay, to the sisters it was even brightened by a faint return of hope, when they had thought all hope was past.
“If mamma keeps as well as she has been the last few days, it will be almost impossible not to begin hoping again,” said Lettice one evening, after their mother had been comfortably settled for the night.
Nina’s less impulsive nature was slower to receive impressions, yet there was a gleam of real brightness in the smile with which she replied to her sister.
“Yes, really,” she said; “and doctors are sometimes mistaken. We must do all we can to keep her from having the least backcast now, just so near Arthur’s coming. How happy—oh, how wonderfully happy—we should be if she were to get even a little better, really better. Oh, Lettice, just think of it!”
“And how she will enjoy having us all together again next week. For Auriol’s holidays begin then too, you know, Nina; and with Arthur here to keep him quiet, poor little boy, it will be much easier than it was at Christmas.”
And with these happy thoughts the poor girls went to bed.
They had slept the sound peaceful sleep of youth, for three or four hours perhaps, when, with a start, they were both aroused by a soft knocking at the door. Half thinking it was fancy, they waited an instant, each unwilling to disturb the other. But again it came, and this time more distinctly. Trembling already so that she could scarcely stand, Lettice opened the door. Ah! there was no need for words. There stood old Bertha, her mother’s maid, with white though composed face, and eyes resolutely refusing to weep as yet.
“My dears,” she whispered, “there is—there is a change. You must come. Miss Lotty, poor thing, too. And I have sent for Master Auriol.”