“As I am, for instance,” put in Helen, quietly. “But I thought we were talking about style. I don’t know why people can’t write down what they see, and yet have good style.”
But Bridget was not attending. She had flung out her arms across the table, and, with her head buried in them, was sobbing convulsively.
Helen paused a moment; then she bent over the girl and kissed her hair.
At her touch Bridget sprang up.
“Oh! I’m a beast—a beast!” she cried incoherently. “I’m always being so hateful to you; and it isn’t your fault.... Only, Helen, I can’t help it, I’m so jealous, so horribly jealous!” She paused, sobbing uncontrollably.
“But why, Bid, dear?”
“Oh! it is hateful, I know,” Bridget whispered; “but if you only knew how I envy you your sort of home, your kind of father. You always live with people who are ladies and gentlemen. They talk about interesting things,—books and pictures; and they are—the word you used—they are cultivated people. Sometimes—O Helen, I can’t help it—I almost hate you, for knowing all you do, so easily. It all comes so naturally to you. And I want it too!” she exclaimed passionately. “What I said just now wasn’t true. You knew it wasn’t true. I should like to have style—and—and—all the rest. I want to know the sort of people you know. I shall never care for any others. And I never can,” she added bitterly, “just because,—oh! it’s awful, just as though it were a crime!”
“But, Bridget,” protested her friend, soothingly, “you are so clever! When you are grown up, you will write books. People will want to know you then. Even the stupid people, who— Besides,” she continued hastily, leaving the sentence unfinished, “you are a lady. Nothing can alter that; any one can see it. Why, even that wretched Lena Mildmay—”
“Ah!” cried Bridget, unheeding, “and there again is a worse trouble. I hate myself, Helen; it seems so mean to say anything, even to you, that seems—that seems—” She hesitated, her lips trembling. There was silence for a moment. “Oh! you know I love my mother, Helen,” she whispered brokenly; “but—”
“Yes, yes, Bid, darling!” Helen interposed, in a voice that was already womanly in its tenderness.