But Susie did not know what to say in this curious position of affairs. To take this pretty young stranger into her arms and talk to her of all John’s excellencies, and kiss her and cry over her with pleasure, as is the wont of a young man’s admiring and sympathetic sister with his love, seemed out of place with Elly, whom she scarcely knew, who seemed to know John better than she did, and who, in place of the emotional stage, was in the anxious one, rather regarding John as a wife does who is concerned about how her husband is going to act in a certain position of affairs which affects their well-being, than as a rapturous girl ready to find everything her lover does half divine. There was care instead of ecstacy on Elly’s brow, and that little conflict of opinion which must take place sometimes between all properly endowed minds, even in the closest relationship, was in full force. She resumed after a time the discussion in which Susie could not take an active part.
‘Don’t you think,’ she said, ‘that instead of starting off like this, to make his fortune—as if a fortune could be made in a day!—it would have been more sensible to wait and give them a little time?’
‘I am sure I don’t know,’ said Susie, diffidently. ‘You are so young. You didn’t mean to—— to marry all at once, even if your papa gave his consent.’
‘Oh, no,’ cried Elly, with a blush and a laugh. ‘Oh, no; why, Jack’s only just come of age.’
Susie accepted this information meekly.
‘Then, he had got your consent?’ she said.
‘Oh, yes,’ cried Elly, with fervour, ‘of course he had that all the time.’ And then the girl was seized with a little fit of that laughter which is so near tears. She grasped Susie suddenly by the arm. ‘Do you know,’ she cried, flaming celestial rosy red, ‘what happened when he went away? We kissed each other! I was only sixteen. It was four years ago. And I have sometimes thought that he never understood what had happened. But, of course, after that, when Jack asked me——’ She could not grow more crimson than she had done before, and her eyes filled with that golden dew of happiness and tears which makes the dullest eyes swim in light. This lovely softening and revolution in the girl’s face touched Susie. She put her arms timidly round her and kissed her cheek, to which Elly replied by flinging herself upon the conforting bosom of this new friend to whom she had now a right.
‘We’re sisters, don’t you know,’ she said. ‘I’ve only had Aunt Mary till now, and Aunt Mary’s so much older. Yes, of course, of course, he had my consent.’
‘Then what did he want more?’ said Susie, in her ear. ‘Dear, I’m of Mr. Percy’s opinion too. He has got to go away and do what he can to make it agreeable to your people. That is the only thing he could do—unless he had kept away altogether,’ Susie added, ‘which would perhaps have been the wisest way.’
At which Elly sprang up, and, seizing her comforter by both arms, shook her, first with wild indignation, then bursting again into the agitated laughter which belonged to her state.