‘My darling, are you ill? I know only that could have prevented you from coming to meet your cousin. Here she is, Ombra mia; here we have her at last—my sweet Kate! Now love each other, girls; be as your mothers were; open your hearts to each other. Oh! my dear children, if you but knew how I love you both!’
And Mrs. Anderson cried while the two stood holding each other’s hands, looking at each other—on Kate’s side with violent curiosity; on Ombra’s apparently with indifference. The mother had to do all the emotion that was necessary, with an impulse which was partly love, and partly vexation, and partly a hope to kindle in them the feelings that became the occasion.
‘How do you do? I am glad to see you. I hope you will like Shanklin,’ said chilly Ombra.
‘Thanks,’ said Kate; and they dropped each other’s hands; while poor Mrs. Anderson wept unavailing tears, and old Francesca, in sympathy, fluttered about the new ‘little angel,’ taking off her cloak, and uttering aloud her admiration and delight. It was a strange beginning to Kate’s new life.
‘I wonder, I wonder——’ the new-comer said to herself when she was safely housed for the night, and alone. Kate had seated herself at the window, from whence a gleam of moon and sky was visible, half veiled in clouds. She was in her dressing-gown, and with her hair all over her shoulders, was a pretty figure to behold, had there been any one to see. ‘I wonder, I wonder!’ she said to herself. But she could not have put into words what her wonderings were. There was only in them an indefinite sense that something not quite apparent had run on beneath the surface in this welcome of hers. She could not tell what it was—why her aunt should have wept; why Ombra should have been so different. Was it the ready tears of the one that chilled the other? Kate was not clear enough on the subject to ask herself this question. She only wondered, feeling there was something more than met the eye. But, on the whole, the child was happy—she had been kissed and blessed when she came upstairs; she seemed to be surrounded with an atmosphere of love and care. There was nobody (except Ombra) indifferent—everybody cared; all were interested. She wondered—but at fifteen one does not demand an answer to all the indefinite wonderings which arise in one’s heart; and, despite of Ombra, Kate’s heart was lighter than it had ever been (she thought) in all her life. Everything was strange, new, unknown to her, yet it was home. And this is a paradox which is always sweet.
CHAPTER XII.
There was something that might almost have been called a quarrel downstairs that night over the new arrival. Ombra was cross, and her mother was displeased; but Mrs. Anderson had far too strong a sense of propriety to suffer herself to scold. When she said ‘I am disappointed in you, Ombra. I have seldom been more wounded than when I came to the door, and did not find you,’ she had done all that occurred to her in the way of reproof.
‘But I had a headache, mamma.’
‘We must speak to the doctor about your headaches,’ said Mrs. Anderson; and Ombra, with something like sullenness, went to bed.