‘I don’t want to say a word against Kate,’ she would say, keeping up her old rôle. ‘I think there is a great deal of good about her; but you know we have no longer our house to ourselves.’
‘Could we enjoy our house to ourselves, Ombra, knowing that poor child to have no home?’ said Mrs. Anderson, with feeling.
‘Well, mamma, the poor child has a great many advantages over us,’ said Ombra, hesitating. ‘I should like to have had her on a visit; but to be always between you and me——’
‘No one can be between you and me, my child.’
‘That is true, perhaps. But then our little house, our quiet life all to ourselves.’
‘That was a dream, my dear—that was a mere dream of your own. People in our position cannot have a life all to ourselves. We have our duties to society; and I have my duty to you, Ombra. Do you think I could be so selfish as to keep you altogether to myself, and never let you see the world, or have your chance of choosing some one who will take care of you better than I can?’
‘Please don’t,’ said Ombra. ‘I am quite content with you; and there is not much at Shanklin that can be called society or the world.’
‘The world is everywhere,’ said Mrs. Anderson, with dignity. ‘I am not one of those who confine the term to a certain class. Your papa was but a Consul, but I have seen many an ambassador who was very inferior to him. Shanklin is a very nice place, Ombra; and the society, what there is, is very nice also. I like my neighbours very much—they are not lords and ladies, but they are well-bred, and some of them are well-born.’
‘I don’t suppose we are among that number,’ said Ombra, with a momentary laugh. This was one of her pet perversities, said out of sheer opposition; for though she thrust the fact forward, she did not like it herself.
‘I think you are mistaken,’ said her mother, with a flush upon her face. ‘Your papa had very good connections in Scotland; and my father’s family, though it was not equal to the Courtenays, which my sister married into, was one of the most respectable in the county. You are not like Kate—you have not the pedigree which belongs to a house which has landed property; but you need not look down upon your forefathers for all that.’