“A girl and a boy.”
“Oh, you poor thing!” said Lady Leighton, giving her friend an embrace full of sympathy. “I am so sorry for you! I hope they are little things.”
Evelyn felt a little restored to herself when she was encountered with such solemnity. “You have turned all at once into a Tragic Muse,” she said; “you need not be so sorry for me. I am not—sorry for myself.”
“Oh, don’t be a humbug,” said Lady Leighton severely; “of all humbugs a virtuous humbug is the worst. You hate it! I can see it in your eyes.”
“My eyes must be very false if they express any such feeling. To tell the truth,” she added smiling, “I am a little frightened—one can scarcely help being that. I don’t know how they may look upon me. I shouldn’t care to be considered like the stepmother of the fairy tales.”
“Poor Evelyn!” said Lady Leighton. She was so much impressed as to lose that pliant readiness of speech which was one of her great qualities. Madeline’s resources were generally supposed by her friends to be unlimited: she had a suggestion for everything. But in this case she was silenced—for at least a whole minute. Then she resumed, as if throwing off a load.
“You should have the boy sent to Eton, and the girl to a good school. You can’t be expected to take them out of the nursery. And for their sakes, Evelyn, if for nothing else, it is most important that you should know people and take your place in society. It makes all my arguments stronger instead of weaker: you must bring Miss Rowland out—when she grows up.”
Evelyn could not but laugh at the ready advice which always sprang up like a perpetual fountain, in fine independence of circumstances. “Dear Madeline,” she said, “there is only one drawback, which is that they are grown up already. My stepdaughter is eighteen. I don’t suppose she will go to school, if I wished it ever so much—and I have no wish on the subject. It is a great responsibility; but provided they will accept me as their friend——”
“And where have they been brought up? Is she pretty? are they presentable? She must have money, and she will marry, Evelyn; there’s hope in that. But instead of departing from my advice to you on that account, I repeat it with double force. You must bring out a girl of eighteen. She must see the world. You can’t let her marry anybody that may turn up in the country. Take my word for it, Evelyn,” she added solemnly, “if it was necessary before, it is still more necessary now.”
“She may not marry at all—there are many girls who do not.”