“to hear
Praise of a sister with unwounded ear.”
When she refused invitations to parties that she might stay at home and nurse Aunt Bell through a slow fever, people said—“She is so indolent, she is glad of an excuse to avoid the trouble of going out.” No one knew that she was not too indolent to watch through the long hours of night beside the sick-bed of the invalid, while her lovely sister was sleeping off the fatigues of the dance. When she gave up a gay season at the Springs, rather than disappoint her old grandmother, who had set her heart upon a visit from one of the sisters—when she spent a long, dull summer in a hot country-house, with no other companions than Aunt Bell and the infirm old lady, and no other amusement than could be found in a book-case full of Minerva-Press novels, then people—those wonderfully knowing people—again said, “Kate Lorimer is turning her indolence to account, and will earn a legacy out of it;” while the fact was, neither Aunt Bell nor grandmother had a cent in the world beyond their life-interest in their old country home.
“If Louisa makes an engagement this winter, I think I shall hurry Ella’s education a little, so as to bring her out next season;” said Mrs. Lorimer to her husband, during one of those “curtain conferences” which are quite the opposite to “curtain lectures.”
“Why should you do that? You will have Kate still to provide for, and Ella will be all the more attractive for another year’s study,” was the reply of the calculating though kind father.
“Oh, Kate is a hopeless case; she will never be married, she is too indifferent; no man will take a fancy to a girl who at the first introduction shows by her manner that she does not care what he thinks of her.”
“Then you think Kate is one of the ‘predestinate old maids?’ ”
“I am afraid so.”
“Well, Kate is a good child, and we shall want one of the girls to keep house for us when we grow old; so I don’t know that we need regret it much.”
“You don’t consider the mortification of bringing out two daughters at a time and having one left on hand, like a bale of unsaleable goods, while such a woman as that vulgar Mrs. Dobbs has married her four red-headed frights in two seasons.”