“We knew,” said Fanny, nodding her head at Annie, who nodded back again; “Mamma, we knew you did not like the little girl.”
“I! not like her! Oh, children, how can you think me so unjust? I hope I am not unjust,” cried Lady Stanton, almost with tears. “Mary is very proud of her little niece. And she is very good to little Nello. Yes, perhaps I like him best, but there is no harm in that. He is a delightful little boy. If you could have had a little brother like that—— ”
“We have only—big brothers,” said Annie, regretfully; “that is different.”
“Yes, that is different. You could not imagine Charley with long, fair curls, and a little tunic, could you?” This made the children laugh, and concealed a little sigh on their mother’s part; for Charlie was a big dragoon, and Lady Stanton foresaw would not have too much consideration, should they ever require his help, for the little sisters whom he undisguisedly felt to be in his way.
“I wonder if she wishes he was a little girl.”
“I wonder! How she must want to have a sister! A little brother would be very nice, too; we used to play at having a little brother; but it would not be like Fanny and me. Does she like being at the Castle, mamma?”
It troubled Lady Stanton that they should think of nothing but this little girl. It was Lilias that had won their interest, and she could not tell them why it was that she shrank from Lilias. “They have left their poor papa all alone and sad,” she said, in a low voice. “I used to know him too. And it must make them sad to think of him so far away.”
Once more the children were greatly puzzled. They were not on such terms of tender intimacy with their father as were thus suggested, but, on the whole, were rather pleased than otherwise when he was absent, and did not follow him very closely with their thoughts. They were slightly humbled as they realized the existence of so much greater susceptibility and lovingness on the part of the little girl in whom they were so much interested, than they themselves possessed. How she surpassed them in this as well as in other things! She talked German as well as English (if it was German; their mother was not clear what language it was)—think of that! So perhaps it was not wonderful that she should be so much fonder of her papa. And a moment of silence ensued. Lady Stanton did not remark the confused pause in the minds of her children, because her own mind was filled with wistful compassion for the lonely man whom she had been thinking of more or less since ever she left Penninghame. Where was he, all alone in the world, shut out from his own house, an exile from his country—even his children away from him, in whom perhaps he had found some comfort?
This momentary silence was interrupted abruptly by the sound of a voice. “Are you there, Cousin Mary? and what are you putting your heads together about?”
At this sound, before they found out what it was, the children disengaged themselves suddenly each from her separate clinging to her mother’s arm, and approached each other as if for flight; but, falling back to their places when they recognized the voice, looked at each other, and said both together, with tones of relief, “Oh, it’s only Geoff!”