“To see papa!” cried Susan, with a look of dismay, clinging suddenly to her uncle’s arm, and looking up in his face. “Oh, uncle, not to-day!”
“And why not to-day, my dear child?” said the Colonel, tenderly; “what has happened to-day? You have been crying, Susan. Can you tell why that was?”
With his kind eyes searching into her face, and his tender arm supporting her, Susan could not keep up her feint of good spirits; she faltered, cast down her eyes, tried to speak, and then fell unawares into a passion of youthful tears—hot, angry, indignant, rebellious tears—the first overflow of personal mortification, injury, and wounded feeling—tears too warm and too plentiful to blight or kill. The Colonel soothed her and bent over her with alarm and anxiety—he was almost too much interested to be a good judge of the depth of her suffering, and for the first moment thought it much more serious than it was.
“Papa called me into the study to-day; he said that you—I mean he said that I was careless of him, and did not do what I ought,” said Susan, who had evidently changed her mind, and substituted these words for some others injurious to her uncle. “He said I loved you better in three days than I had loved him for all my life. Oh, uncle, can I help it?—is it my fault?—for nobody until now ever loved me!”
“Hush, my dear child!—is that all?” said Colonel Sutherland. “Come, come, do not cry—I daresay you were thinking of something else at breakfast, and forgot what you were about—perhaps Letty. He will soon forgive you, my love. Sometimes I have a row with my Ned when he is at home. Don’t cry, my dear child.”
“Ah, uncle, but you don’t understand it,” cried poor Susan, rather disappointed to have her sorrow undervalued; “he wanted me not—not”—and here with a great burst the truth came out—“not to keep your presents—nor to see you—nor to write to you—nor anything: he said he would not permit it; he said I belonged to him, and so I think he believes. I do, uncle,” cried Susan, with fire and indignation, “like a table or a chair!”
“Hush, my child! I wonder why he objects to me, Susan,” said the Colonel, with a little grieved astonishment. “And what did you say?”
“I said I would not, uncle—I could not help it!” cried Susan, with another burst of tears. “I never disobeyed him in my life before; but I was very obstinate and stubborn. I know I was. I said I would not do what he told me. I can’t! I will not! I will stay in Marchmain, and never seek to go away. I will do everything else he tells me. I will work like Peggy, if he pleases; but I will write to you, uncle, and see you whenever I can, and love you always. Oh! uncle, uncle, do not you be angry with me too!”
“I!” said Uncle Edward, his voice faltering, “my poor dear, child!—I!—if I only could carry you home with me, Susan! It is hard to think I have given you more, instead of less to suffer. Ah, Susan, if I could but take you home with me!”
Susan dried her eyes, comforted by the words. “I must not hope for that, uncle,” she said, with more composure; “and indeed I could not leave papa, either. He is very unhappy, I am sure. If I only knew what to do for him! And I don’t want him to think me stubborn and undutiful. He is angry, and disturbed, and strange this morning. I never saw him so before. Do not speak to him to-day.”