“Violet, my dear, I take a great interest in you,” said Mary. “When I look at you, I sometimes think I see myself at your age. I don’t like to think that you may grow up to make a demigod of Val—or indeed of any other.”
“Miss Percival!—I! Oh, how dare you?—how can you say so?” cried Violet, springing to her feet, her face crimson, her eyes shining. “I! make a—anything of Val. Oh, how can you be so unkind, you grown-up people? Must a girl never speak to a boy unless he is her brother? And Val has been just like my brother. I think of him—as I think of Sandy.”
“Oh, you little story-teller!” cried Mary, laughing in spite of herself, as Violet’s indignant voice faltered into uncertainty; “but, Vi, I am not going to scold—don’t be afraid. I am going to tell you for your good what happened to me. I don’t like doing it,” she said, with a blush that almost neutralised the difference of age between herself and the girl who listened to her; “but I think it may be for your good, dear. Violet, when I was your age there was some one—whom I was constantly in the habit of seeing, as you might be of seeing Val. There was never any—flirtation or nonsense between us. How shall I say it, Violet?—for I don’t care to speak of such things any more than you would. I liked him, as I thought, as you do, like a brother; and he was always kept before me—never any one but Richard. After a while he went out into the world, and there did—something which separated us for ever! oh, not anything wrong, Vi—not a crime, or even vice—but something which showed me that I, and all I was, such as I was, was nothing in the world to him—that nothing was of value to him but his own caprice. I never got over it, Violet. You see me now growing old, unmarried; and of course I never shall marry now, nor have young ones round me like your mother——”
“Oh, dear Miss Percival,” cried Violet, with tears in her eyes, “who cares for being married? What has that to do with it? Is it not far finer, far grander, to live like you, for ever constant to your first love? Is not that the best of all?” cried the little enthusiast, flushing with visionary passion. Mary caught her by her pretty shoulders, shook her and kissed her, and laughed, and let one or two tears drop, a tribute, half to her own, half to the child’s excitement.
“You little goose!” she cried. “Vi, I saw him after, years after—such a man to waste one’s life for!—a poor petty dilettante, more fond of a bit of china than of child or wife, or love or honour. Ah, Vi, you don’t understand me! but to think I might have been the mother of a child like you, but for that poor creature of a man!”
“Oh, don’t, don’t!” cried Vi, putting her hands to her ears; “I will not listen to you, now. If you—loved him,” said the girl, hesitating and blushing at the word, “you never, never could speak of him like that.”
“I never—never could have been deceived in him,—is that what you mean? Vi, I hope you will never follow my example.”
“Hollo!” cried another voice of some one coming in at the door, which stood open all day long, as cottage doors do—“is there any one in—is Mary here? Are you in, Vi?” and Val’s head, glowing with a run up the brae, bright with life and mirth, and something which looked very much like boyish innocence and pleasure, looked in suddenly at the parlour door. Val was struck by consternation when he saw the agitated looks which both endeavoured to hide. “What’s the row?” he asked, coming in with his hat in his hand. “You look as if you had been crying. What have you been doing, Mary, to Vi?”
“Scolding her,” said Miss Percival, laughing. “I hope you have no objection, Val.”
“But I have great objections; nobody shall bother Violet and make her cry, if I can help it. She never did anything in her life to deserve scolding. Vi,” cried Val, turning to her suddenly, “do you remember the day we played truant? If Mary hadn’t been here, I meant to carry you off again into the woods.”