“I believe in you, now!” cried Octavia. “Oh, I don’t know about the pictures! What does it matter what people can do? Talent is only an accident. It’s what people are that counts!”
Now it had occurred to me several times to try to comfort Octavia in that sort of way; but we are not given to preaching in our family, and I feared that the author of “Evelyn Marchmont” would find me trite, and somewhat of a Job’s comforter as well. “You are true and strong,” continued Octavia, while Estelle stared at her round-eyed, and I actually found my mouth hanging helplessly open with amazement—like Jonas Hickey’s, at the poorhouse, who isn’t even half-witted.
It was a little queer to regard Estelle as strong, just when she was giving way to tears like a child!
“You’re not thinking of yourself, like me,” continued Octavia. “You’re doing it all for Dave. You’ve been true to Dave, and I—I haven’t. I’ve been too hard and careless, to him and you always! This—this has shown it to me. I don’t quite know why! I suppose it’s the sympathy.”
God’s providence! “God’s providence is mine inheritance,” rang in my ears as if some one had said it. It seems sometimes—often, often, as we grow older, that we can see God’s great web in its weaving. Tiny threads, unconsidered trifles, and all woven into the wonderful pattern of life!
But the situation was becoming a little strained for Palmyra girls in a stranger’s studio. Octavia felt it, and arose suddenly to her feet with a murmured apology. Miss Carruthers showed a ready tact. She took the matter lightly, although there were sympathetic tears in her frank gray eyes, and insisted that we should all stay to tea.
It was served in the studio, and was a delightfully merry affair, considering that our visit had begun so tearfully. Miss Bocock, an elderly Englishwoman, who lived with Miss Carruthers, as companion and chaperon, declined tea, and devoted herself to embroidery and a vinaigrette, which she offered to Octavia and Estelle, evidently on account of their tearful appearance, and somewhat to their embarrassment.
Octavia seemed to wholly recover her spirits, or else she felt that she had shown quite enough of her wounded feelings to strangers. Estelle was very quiet and occasionally stole a pleased and puzzled glance at Octavia, as if she had formed an agreeable new acquaintance, but didn’t quite know what to make of her.
I was making a furtive study of the beautiful room, hoping that Estelle might some day have one just like it, when the door opened and a young man came in, who did not need to be introduced as the brother of our winsome hostess.
He was almost but not quite her masculine counterpart; not quite, for he lacked both her fineness and her picturesqueness, and his nose was more decidedly snub. But when one met his eyes, gray like hers, one found the same frankness. On the whole, he seemed like a rough and unsuccessful masculine copy of his sister; or, rather, as Burns’ song has it, as if nature had “tried her prentice hand” on him, and then had “made the lassie-o.”