"I do perceive here a divided duty."
Othello.
When Waveney broke the news of Mollie's engagement to her friends at the Red House, the sisters only looked at each other with a meaning smile.
"So that is the end of the comedy," observed Althea, in an amused voice. "'All's well that ends well,' eh, Dorrie? Of course we all knew how it would end, that evening at the theatre."
"To be sure we did," returned Doreen, complacently.
Nothing ever ruffled her placidity. If people chose to be engaged or married, it was their affair, not hers. Doreen never envied them, never drew unfavourable comparisons between her friends' matrimonial bliss and her own single blessedness. She had walked contentedly "in maiden meditation, fancy free," all these years. "I was cut out for an old maid," she would say sometimes, laughingly, to her sister; "the rôle just suits me. You are different," she once added, looking rather wistfully at Althea as she spoke.
"Yes," replied Althea, frankly, "you and I are different people, Dorrie. You are the happiest and most contented woman I know; but"—a little pathetically—"I have not had all my good things." And, though she said no more, Doreen understood her.
"It is very odd to think that that pretty little Mollie Ward is to be a connection of ours," went on Doreen, when Waveney had bidden them good-night. Waveney's heart was so full that she yearned to be alone in her Pansy Room and think over the day's excitement. "Mollie will be our cousin." And as Althea assented to this with a smile, she continued, "I wonder what Gwen will think of her new sister-in-law?"
"My dear Dorrie, I think I can answer that. Given will be charmed with her. You know how much Gwen thinks of beauty, and where will you find a sweeter face than Mollie's? Then she is such a dear little unsophisticated thing. Ah, Gwen will lose her heart to her, you may depend on that. Upon my word," she went on, "I think Moritz has not chosen so badly, after all. Indeed, for an idealist, he has done very well for himself, and I shall write and congratulate him most cordially. Mollie will make a most fascinating little viscountess. She will have much to learn, of course; but she will be no faint-hearted Lady of Burleigh, sinking weakly under the burden of 'an honour into which she was not born,'" finished Althea, with a little laugh. And then, as the old grand-father's clock in the hall struck ten, Doreen rang the bell for prayers.
Althea did more than write her letter of congratulation. She drove down all the way to Cleveland Terrace a day or two afterwards, to see Mollie, and wish her joy; and she was so kind and sympathetic, she praised Moritz, and said so many nice things about him that Mollie was ready to worship her for her tact and gentleness.