‘Poor Kate! Why is she poor? She could buy us over and over,’ said Ombra, in her indignation.
‘Buy what?’ said her clever mother—‘our love?’
‘Mamma, please don’t speak any nonsense about love!’ said Ombra, hastily. ‘I can’t love people at a moment’s notice; because a girl whom I never saw happens to be the child of my aunt, whom I never saw——’
‘Then suppose we leave you out,’ said her mother. ‘She is the child of my sister, whom I knew well, and was very fond of—that alters the question so far as I am concerned.’
‘Oh! of course, mamma,’ said Ombra, with darkened brows, ‘I do not pretend to do more than give my opinion. It is for you to say how it is to be.’
‘Do you think I can make a decision without you?’ said the mother, pathetically. ‘You must try to look at it more reasonably, my dear. Next to you, Kate is the creature most near to me in the world—next to me. Now, listen, Ombra; she is your nearest relation. Think what it will be to have a friend and a sister if anything should happen to me. The house is small, but we cannot truly say that we have not room for a little girl of fifteen in it. And then think of her loneliness—not a soul to care for her, except that old Mr. Courtenay——’
‘Oh! that is nonsense; she must have some one to care for her, or else she must be intensely disagreeable,’ said Ombra. ‘Mamma, remember what I say—if we take her in, we shall repent it all our lives.’
‘Nothing of the sort, my dear,’ said Mrs. Anderson, eagerly following up this softened opposition. ‘Why she is only fifteen—a mere child!—we can mould her as we will. And then, my dearest child, though heaven knows it is not interest I am thinking of, still it will be a great advantage; our income will be doubled. I must say Mr. Courtenay is very liberal, if nothing else. We shall be able to do many things that we could not do otherwise. Why, Ombra, you look as if you thought I meant to rob your cousin——’
‘I would not use a penny of her allowance—it should be all spent upon herself!’ cried the girl, flushing with indignant passion. ‘Our income doubled! Mamma, what can you be thinking of? Do you suppose I could endure to be a morsel the better for that Kate?’
‘You are a little fool, and there is no talking to you,’ said Mrs. Anderson, with natural impatience; and for half an hour they did not speak to each other. This, however, could not last very long, for providentially, as Mrs. Anderson said, one of the Rectory girls came in at the time when it was usual for the ladies to take their morning walk, and she would not for all the Isle of Wight have permitted Elsie to see that her child and she were not on their usual terms. When Elsie had left them, a slight relapse was threatened, but they were then walking together along the cliff, with one of the loveliest of landscapes before them—the sun setting, the ruddy glory lighting up Sandown Bay, and all the earth and sea watching that last crisis and climax of the day.