“Yes, poor child! but she is a rich child at the same time, and luckier a great deal than either you or I.”
“Oh, don’t say so, Miss Hofland. If you had ever been with us at home, you would not say any one was happier than me.”
“Well, my dear, so much the better for you. I never pretended to be very happy. I have no home at all, and I have been teaching children in one house and another since I was sixteen. I have never had any youth. It is hard to go on teaching all one’s life, and that not even for somebody one cares for, but only just for one’s self, to keep the life in one, which one doesn’t much wish to keep.”
“Oh, Miss Hofland!” Hetty cried.
“It is quite true, my dear. Why should one? One has to live, because one has been brought into the world. And then one goes on working, a stranger everywhere, never with any home just in order to have enough to eat and clothes to put on. Oh, I have always envied the poor girls, whom everybody is sorry for, who have to send their money home to their mothers! It has always been said I was so well off, I had nobody but myself to think of. Well, don’t let us talk like this. It frightens you, and it does me no good. My dear, this is a very strange house.”
“It is very quiet,” Hetty hazarded: and then felt frightened for what she had said.
“Quiet! It wasn’t quiet at one time, I believe, when she first married him; and now they say he’s mad, and she is away. And why is that doctor always about, my dear? Don’t you notice how often he is here? The servants are not always ill, but my belief is that Mr. Darrell is here every day; and when we meet him in the park, how is it that he’s always so anxious to explain where he’s going? I don’t understand about that man.”
“He looks very nice,” said Hetty, apologetically, feeling that it was hard to condemn a man who probably was not to blame.
“Oh, he is nice enough. I don’t say anything about his niceness. But why is he so often here? Mrs. Mills is not a confirmed invalid, but he is always having long talks with her, and when any one sees them they look startled. Would you like to hear what I think? I think both Mrs. Mills and Mr. Darrell are in the secret, and know why Mrs. Rotherham is away: and perhaps Mr. Hayman too.”
“But then it must be quite right if the clergyman knows it,” said Hetty, brought up with a faith in clergymen which her companion did not share. Miss Hofland shook her head.