It was a Lover and His Lass

by Mrs. Oliphant

"Oh, what could I say?" cried Katie. "A girl must have a proper pride. Would I let you see and let him see that I was minding! Oh! no, no! and his mother every time we met her, and every time mamma met her, always, always on about Philip and you. She told us all the places he went with you—every place, even to the Queen's Court: and there was his name in the Times—for she got it on purpose, and sent it over the water to papa: and she said he always contrived to get an invitation wherever you went."

Lilias smiled with high disdain.

"Many people would have liked to do that," she said, "for we went to the grandest houses, where Philip Stormont, or even the Murrays of Murkley, who are very different, would never set a foot. Oh! it was no credit of ours—we just had—a friend——"

"A friend! And that was the gentleman you meant, not him; and it was a person I knew? I cannot guess it, for I don't know any person who could be a friend to you. But just it was not—him? That is so wonderful, I cannot think of anything else; for all this time I have been thinking and thinking, and trying not to think, and then just thinking the more."

Lilias smiled upon her, a gracious, but half-disdainful, half-disappointed smile. Katie could think of nothing but this. She had no sympathy, no interest, in what had happened to her friend. It hurt Lilias a little: for there was no one else whom she could speak to of that other who was so much more important than Philip. She was wounded a little, and retired into herself in lofty, but gentle superiority. She could have told things that would have made her little companion admire and wonder. But what did Katie care except about Philip, a country youth who was nobody, a rustic gentleman that gaped and was helpless in the brilliant world? Lilias felt a great superiority, but yet a little check and disappointment too. It seemed to her that her little companion had fallen far behind her in the march of life, that Katie was only a child, crying, sobbing, unable to think of anything but one thing—and a little nobody, too. She herself had gone a long way beyond her little rural companion, which was quite just—for was not Lilias a whole year older, besides her season in town? So she allowed herself to be tolerant and indulgent. Was it not natural? So young and little, and only one thing in her head—Philip, and no more. Lilias put away her own interrupted history with a proud self-denial. She would not betray it to any one who was not worthy of that confidence, although her heart ached a little with the solitude of it and the need of speech. But surely it was but for a day or two that it could be allowed to continue, this solitude of the heart? She went out in the afternoon with Katie for a walk, and went to New Murkley with many a thought. But New Murkley was overflowing to Katie with images of Philip, and Lilias moved along abstracted, always with a little sense of disdainful wonder and toleration for one who could think of nothing but Philip, though on the verge, had she chosen, of far greater things.

When she returned to her sisters afterwards, she found these ladies in a state of great perturbation and distress. Jean was sitting, with her bonnet still on, too much agitated to think of her work. Margaret was walking up and down the drawing-room, also in her outdoor dress, and carrying on an indignant monologue. The entrance of Lilias discomposed them both. They had not expected her, and, as Margaret did not perceive her at first, Jean gave a little exclamation of warning.

"Margaret, it is Lilias!" she cried.

And Margaret, in her walk up and down, turned round and faced her, with a look of annoyance which it was impossible to conceal. She was heated and angry, and the interruption aggravated her discontent. She said,

"Well, what about Lilias? It's all Lilias so far as I can see, and we seem just fated to have no more peace in our lives."

"Is it I that am taking away your peace, Margaret?" Lilias said. She had come in with a kind of lofty sadness and longing, her heart full, and no relief to it possible; her life waiting, as it seemed, for a touch from without—a something which could not come of her own initiative. It was not enough to trouble her as with a sense of dependence, but only to make her sensible of an incompleteness, an impotence, which yet was sweet.