'You are so good, dear Lady Myrtle, so good and kind, that it seems impertinence for me to differ from you,' the younger woman replied. 'It was only that your words struck me curiously. Can we decide and alter things in that way? Our relations are our relations; can we, when it suits us, say they are not? Can we throw off the duties and responsibilities of relationship? Of course they vary enormously; sometimes they scarcely exist, and one can lay down no rule. But still, in the present case, it is because the Harpers are your relations, and yet by no fault of their own entirely alienated from you, that I have told you about them. These are solid substantial facts; we cannot undo facts.'
Lady Myrtle was silent. Mrs Mildmay glanced at her anxiously, very anxiously. But there was no sign of irritation in the quiet old face—only of thought, deep thought. And there was a grave softness in the usually keen eyes, as if they were reviewing far distant or far past scenes.
At last, 'Thank you, my dear, for your candour,' she said. 'Well, leave that question alone. I will help this family and at once, because it seems to me a clear duty to do so. Can you not be satisfied with this practical response to your appeal, my dear?'
'I thank you with all my heart,' said Mrs Mildmay earnestly, 'both for your generosity and for your patience with my presumption.'
But she evaded a direct reply to Lady Myrtle's question, and her friend did not press her farther.
The result of this conversation we have seen in the letter with its enclosure which was posted that very evening. The former was not a source of unmitigated satisfaction to Mrs Mildmay. For Lady Myrtle insisted on the insertion of the last few lines.
It would not be honest, she maintained, to withhold the expression of her true sentiments.
So with what she had achieved, Mrs Mildmay was forced to be content, though there were times during the next day or two in which she asked herself if perhaps she had not done more harm than good? And times again, when with the rebound of her naturally buoyant nature, she allowed herself to hope that she had succeeded in inserting the thin edge of the wedge; in 'making,' as she had expressed it to Francie, 'a beginning towards more.'
