The poor child threw her arms round Miss Minerva’s neck, and cried her heart out on the bosom of the woman who was deceiving her. “I have nobody left, now Teresa has gone,” she said. “Oh, do try to be kind to me—I feel so friendless and so lonely!”
Miss Minerva neither moved nor spoke. She waited, and let the girl cry.
Her heavy black eyebrows gathered into a frown; her sallow face deepened in colour. She was in a state of rebellion against herself. Through all the hardening influences of the woman’s life—through the fortifications against good which watchful evil builds in human hearts—that innocent outburst of trust and grief had broken its way; and had purified for a while the fetid inner darkness with divine light. She had entered the room, with her own base interests to serve. In her small sordid way she, like her employer, was persecuted by debts—miserable debts to sellers of expensive washes, which might render her ugly complexion more passable in Ovid’s eyes; to makers of costly gloves, which might show Ovid the shape of her hands, and hide their colour; to skilled workmen in fine leather, who could tempt Ovid to look at her high instep, and her fine ankle—the only beauties that she could reveal to the only man whom she cared to please. For the time, those importunate creditors ceased to threaten her. For the time, what she had heard in the conservatory, while they were reading the Will, lost its tempting influence. She remained in the room for half an hour more—and she left it without having borrowed a farthing.
“Are you easier now?”
“Yes, dear.”
Carmina dried her eyes, and looked shyly at Miss Minerva. “I have been treating you as if I had a sister,” she said; “you don’t think me too familiar, I hope?”
“I wish I was your sister, God knows!”
The words were hardly out of her mouth before she was startled by her own fervour. “Shall I tell you what to do with Mrs. Gallilee?” she said abruptly. “Write her a little note.”
“Yes! yes! and you will take it for me?”
Carmina’s eyes brightened through her tears, the suggestion was such a relief! In a minute the note was written: “My dear Aunt, I have behaved very badly, and I am very much ashamed of it. May I trust to your kind indulgence to forgive me? I will try to be worthier of your kindness for the future; and I sincerely beg your pardon.” She signed her name in breathless haste. “Please take it at once!” she said eagerly.