'Alas!' said mother with a heavy sigh; 'she will see a great deal more, I fear; and a deal more than is good for her. Whether you ever see her again will depend upon her nature, John.'
'What do you mean, mother? Have you quarrelled? Why does not Lorna come to me? Am I never to know?'
'Now, John, be not so impatient,' my mother replied, quite calmly, for in truth she was jealous of Lorna, 'you could wait now, very well, John, if it were till this day week, for the coming of your mother, John. And yet your mother is your best friend. Who can ever fill her place?'
Thinking of her future absence, mother turned away and cried; and the box-iron singed the blanket.
'Now,' said I, being wild by this time; 'Lizzie, you have a little sense; will you tell me where is Lorna?'
'The Lady Lorna Dugal,' said Lizzie, screwing up her lips as if the title were too grand, 'is gone to London, brother John; and not likely to come back again. We must try to get on without her.'
'You little—[something]' I cried, which I dare not write down here, as all you are too good for such language; but Lizzie's lip provoked me so—'my Lorna gone, my Lorna gone! And without good-bye to me even! It is your spite has sickened her.'
'You are quite mistaken there,' she replied; 'how can folk of low degree have either spite or liking towards the people so far above them? The Lady Lorna Dugal is gone, because she could not help herself; and she wept enough to break ten hearts—if hearts are ever broken, John.'
'Darling Lizzie, how good you are!' I cried, without noticing her sneer; 'tell me all about it, dear; tell me every word she said.'
'That will not take long,' said Lizzie, quite as unmoved by soft coaxing as by urgent cursing; 'the lady spoke very little to any one, except indeed to mother, and to Gwenny Carfax; and Gwenny is gone with her, so that the benefit of that is lost. But she left a letter for “poor John,” as in charity she called him. How grand she looked, to be sure, with the fine clothes on that were come for her!'