Heriot's Choice: A Tale

by Rosa Nouchette Carey

'The hardest part was to come;' and Olive shivered, as though suddenly chilled. 'I was not prepared for Rex being so angry; he is so seldom cross, but he said harder things to me than he has said in his life.'

Mildred thought of the harmless kicks on the beck gravel, and the irritability in the porch, and could not forbear a smile. She could not imagine Roy's wrath could be very alarming, especially as Olive owned her father had been very lenient to him, and had promised to give the subject his full consideration. In this case, Olive's interference had really worked good; but Roy's manhood had taken fire at the notion of being watched and talked over; his father's mild hints of moral weakness and dilatoriness had affronted him; and though secretly relieved, the difficulty of revelation had been spared him, he had held his head higher, and had crushed his sister by a tirade against feminine impertinence and interference; and, what hurt her most, had declared his intention of never confiding in such a 'meddlesome Matty again.'

Mildred was thankful the darkness hid her look of amusement at this portion of Olive's lugubrious story, though the girl herself was too weak and cowed to see the ludicrous side of anything; and her voice changed into the old hopeless key as she spoke of Richard's look of withering scorn.

'He was almost too angry to speak to me, Aunt Milly. He said he never would trust me again. I had better not know what he thought of me. I had injured him beyond reparation. I don't know what he meant by that, but Roy told me that he would not have had his father troubled for the world; he could manage his own concerns, spiritual as well as temporal, for himself. And then he sneered; but oh, Aunt Milly, he looked so white and ill. I am sure now that for some reason he did not want papa to know; perhaps things were not so bad as I thought, or he is trying to feel better about it all. Do you think I have done wrong, Aunt Milly?'

And Olive wrung her hands in genuine distress and burst into fresh tears, and sobbed out that she had done for herself now; no one would believe she had said it for the best; even Rex was angry with her—and Cardie, she was sure Cardie would never forgive her.

'Yes, when this has blown over, and he and his father have come to a full understanding. I have better faith in Cardie's good heart than that.'

But Mildred felt more uneasy than her cheerful words implied. She had seen from the first that Richard had persistently misunderstood his sister; this fresh interference on her part, as he would term it, touching on a very sore place, would gall and irritate him beyond endurance. He had no conception of the amount of unselfish affection that was already lavished upon him; in fact he thought Olive provokingly cold and undemonstrative, and chafed at her want of finer feelings. It needed some sort of shock or revelation to enable him to read his sister's character in a truer light, and any kind of one-sided reconciliation would be a very warped and patched affair.

Mildred's clear-sightedness was fully alive to these difficulties; but it was expedient to comfort Olive, who had relapsed into her former state of agitation. There was clearly no wrong in the case; want of tact and mistaken kindness were the heaviest sins to be laid to poor Olive's charge; yet Mildred now found her incoherently accusing herself of wholesale want of principle, of duty, and declaring that she was unworthy of any one's affections.

'I shall call you naughty for the first time, Olive, if I hear any more of this,' interrupted her aunt; and by infusing a little judicious firmness into her voice, and by dint of management, though not without difficulty, and representing that she herself was in need of rest, she succeeded in persuading the worn-out girl to seek some repose.

Unwilling to trust her out of her sight, she made her share her own bed; nor did she relax her vigil until the swollen eyelids had closed in refreshing sleep, and the sobbing breaths were drawn more evenly. Once, at an uneasy movement, she started from the doze into which she had fallen, and put aside the long dark hair with a fondling hand; the moon was then shining from behind the hill, and the beams shone full through the uncurtained windows; the girl's hands were crossed upon her breast, folded over the tiny silver cross she always wore, a half-smile playing on her lips—