‘Rosie, dear, do you know I have a great deal to do? Don’t ask me so many questions,’ Anne said, piteously. But Rose was more occupied by her own thoughts than by anything her sister said.
‘He ought to have been at the funeral,’ she said, with that calm which was always so astonishing to her sister. ‘I thought when you went to the grave you must have known you were to meet him there. Mamma thought so, too.’
These words sank like stones into Anne’s heart; but there was a kind of painful smile on her face. ‘You thought I was thinking of meeting anyone there? Oh, Rose, did you think me so cold-hearted? I was thinking only of him who was to be laid there.’
‘I don’t mean that you are cold-hearted. Of course we were all wretched enough. Mamma said it would have been too much either for her or me; but you were always the strongest, and then of course we expected Mr. Douglas would be there.’
‘You do not know him,’ cried Anne, with a little vehemence; ‘you do not know the delicacy, the feeling he has. How was he to come intruding himself the moment that my father was gone—thrusting himself even into his presence, after being forbidden. A man of no feeling might have done it, but he——. Rosie, please go away. I cannot talk to you any more.’
‘Oh, was that how it was?’ Rose was silenced for the moment. She went away to the seat by the fire which her sister had pointed out to her. Anne had not noticed that she had still the letter in her hands. And then she was quiet for some time, while her sister resumed her writing. Cosmo’s conduct soon went out of Rose’s head, while she occupied herself with the other more important matter which concerned herself. What might be in this letter of papa’s? Probably some new change, some new will, something quite different. ‘If I am not to be the heiress after all, only have the name of it for three years, what will be the use?’ Rose said to herself. She was very sensible in her limited way. ‘I would rather not have any deception or have the name of it, if it is going to be taken away from me just when I should want to have it.’ She looked at the seals of the packet with longing eyes. If they would only melt—if they would but break of themselves. ‘I wonder why we shouldn’t read it now?’ she said. ‘It is not as if we were other people, as if we were strangers—we are his own daughters, his two only children—he could not have meant to hide anything from us. If you will open and read it, and tell me what it is, we need not tell anyone—we need not even tell mamma.’
‘What are you talking of, Rose?’
‘I am talking of papa’s letter, of course. Why should you keep it, not knowing what harm it may be going to do—— Anne! you hurt me—you hurt me!’ Rose cried.
Anne sprang to her feet with the natural impetuosity which she tried so hard to keep under, and seized the letter out of her sister’s hands.
‘You must never speak nor think of anything of the kind,’ she cried; ‘my father’s wish, his last charge to us——’