“I am not going to Herbert, I am going to Flanders—to Bruges,” said Miss Susan, carried away by a sense of the importance of her mission, and always awaiting, as her right, some spark of curiosity, at least.
Augustine returned to her drawings; the waning light died out of her face; she became again the conventional visionary, the recluse of romance, abstracted and indifferent. “The vicar is always against me,” she said; “you must talk to him, Susan. He wants the Browns to come into the vacant cottage. He says they have been honest and all that; but they are not praying people. I cannot take them in; it is praying people I want.”
“In short, you want something for your money,” said her sister; “a percentage, such as it is. You are more a woman of business, my dear, than you think.”
Augustine looked at her, vaguely, startled. “I try to do for the best,” she said. “I do not understand why people should always wish to thwart me; what I want is their good.”
“They like their own way better than their good, or rather than what you think is for their good,” said Miss Susan. “We all like our own way.”
“Not me, not me!” said the other, with a sigh; and she rose and crossed herself once more. “Will you come to prayers at the almshouse, Susan? The bell will ring presently, and it would do you good.”
“My dear, I have no time,” said the elder sister, “I have a hundred things to do.”
Augustine turned away with a soft shake of the head. She folded her arms into her sleeves, and glided away like a ghost. Presently her sister saw her crossing the lawn, her gray hood thrown lightly over her head, her long robes falling in straight, soft lines, her slim figure moving along noiselessly. Miss Susan was the practical member of the family, and but for her probably the Austins of Whiteladies would have died out ere now, by sheer carelessness of their substance, and indifference to what was going on around them; but as she watched her sister crossing the lawn, a sense of inferiority crossed her mind. She felt herself worldly, a pitiful creature of the earth, and wished she was as good as Augustine. “But the house, and the farm, and the world must be kept going,” she said, by way of relieving herself, with a mingling of humor and compunction. It was not much her small affairs could do to make or mar the going on of the world, but yet in small ways and great the world has to be kept going. She went off at once to the bailiff, who was waiting for her, feeling a pleasure in proving to herself that she was busy and had no time, which is perhaps a more usual process of thought with the Marthas of this world than the other plan of finding fault with the Marys, for in their hearts most women have a feeling that the prayer is the best.
The intimation of Miss Susan’s intended absence excited the rest of the household much more than it had excited her sister. “Wherever are you going to, miss?” said cook, who was as old as her mistress, and had never changed her style of addressing her since the days when she was young Miss Susan and played at house-keeping.
“I am going abroad,” she answered, with a little innocent pride; for to people who live all their lives at home there is a certain grandeur in going abroad. “You will take great care of my sister, and see that she does not fast too much.”