"Undoubtedly he is. But, dear child, consider what he has been to me, to us all. I could not bear to call him my stepson. I rejoice, I am proud, thankful that I have had one like him to stand by me and give to me a mother's name and a son's love. I would not have him hear you speak of him as you did to-day for the world."
"I did not mean to trouble you, mother; you may be sure of that. I will always call him Richard; and I am sure I wish he were my real brother, instead of being only half and half."
The words jarred on Mrs. Whitmore's ear, though she echoed Gertrude's wish without realising its double meaning. But the sarcastic laugh which the girl gave, and a certain hardness of manner when Richard was spoken of, alike grieved and puzzled her mother. She hardly knew how to speak on the subject, but kept hoping that if during Gertrude's absence from home she had received some undesirable impression, it would be best removed by time and the absence of any allusion to it.
But three years passed, and still an unseen barrier stood between Richard and his eldest sister; yet though everyone felt its existence, and dated it from Gertrude's visit to the Tindalls, she had adhered to her resolve, and never named the cause of her changed manner. Indeed, she would have felt ashamed to lay bare her thoughts, even to her mother. She could not help being conscious of her unreasonableness in feeling indignant at Richard, simply because he had alike the power and the will to shower good things upon them all, and did it with a large-hearted affection which never allowed the thought to intrude itself, that they had no legal claim to share equally with him.
Selfishness would not permit Gertrude to relinquish what she so thoroughly enjoyed, but her appreciation did not stir her to thankfulness to God or gratitude to her brother. Often, instead of these, she would shed bitter tears at the thought of her dependence on Richard's pleasure, and call herself a mere pauper in the sight of the world.
If ever there was a time when the nobility of Richard Whitmore's character shone out with greater lustre than at others, it was in his dealings with his sister Gertrude. He could not be unconscious that she regarded him with less affection than of old; and if he guessed the cause of the change, he said nothing. He simply met it with unvarying kindness, snaking no difference between one and another of the girls, except that she, as the eldest, had in some respects more and handsomer dresses than the younger ones, as became a lady after her introduction to society.
So three years passed, and brought about little change in the relations between the two, but at the end of the time came the day when Richard stood beside Mrs. Whitmore, and soothed her last hours by the promise, "As you have been a true mother to me, so will I be to the girls all that you say—God helping me." Then he had driven away her anxieties about the future by brave and trustful words, and Mrs. Whitmore put from her mind the last anxious thought by repeating to herself what he had bidden her remember, "Dick does not stand alone. His father's God is his God also, and trusting in Him for strength, according to his day, he can never be desolate, or in doubt as to the course which is right."
Yet it was a solemn responsibility for so young a man to take upon himself. Dick was just twenty-six and Gertrude twenty, the others following at intervals of two years each, so that Molly, his special darling, was fourteen when left without father and mother.
She was a warm-hearted, impulsive creature, to whom Dick had been from her earliest days playfellow, friend, confidant, and protector, as well as brother. To Molly there was no one in the world like Richard. As a child she would have left any person or thing only to be by his side, to wait his leisure, or to trot patiently up and down after or for him.
It was to him she fled for comfort in trouble at all times, and especially when this crowning sorrow of her young life came upon her. The three elder girls wept together. Molly stole into the library, where Dick sat alone after he had given the needful orders and spoken a few loving words to the rest. She did not trouble him with passionate tears or outbreaks of wailing and sobbing, but in truly unselfish fashion tried to repress these for his sake.