"I don't quite see, dear—well, what?"
"Me, for instance," murmured Muriel. "It would be a terrible thing if after all she never got me off, wouldn't it? Especially after Connie's death. You know, it was a pity that I hadn't any brothers. Boys can go and get married on their own. But when women like you and I, Auntie, are left unmarried, it is rather a trial for our parents, isn't it?"
"Oh, but, dear, of course you will marry one day. It's early to talk——"
"Is it? Do you think I shall?" Muriel turned from the dressing-table and looked at her aunt. "I'm nearly thirty. Nobody has ever proposed to me yet. Do you think that it's likely?"
"Why, of course, dear. Heaps and heaps of girls marry long after they are thirty."
"Of course—there's a hope, isn't there, that one's life may not be utterly wasted—even at the eleventh hour—one might—marry?"
Even Aunt Beatrice could not bear everything. She rose from her chair and crossed to the window, a timid, inefficient, untidy little figure, with weak wistful eyes and a stubbornly submissive mouth; but there was a quiver of animation in her voice that Muriel had never heard before.
"I hope very sincerely, dear, I always have hoped that you would marry, both for your own sake and for your mother's. I am very fond of your mother. I was bitterly sorry about her terrible trouble with dear Connie, though I dare say that no one but another mother could know quite what it felt like to lose her child and grandchild together, so to speak. I should like for her sake to see you married. It would repay her for many troubles she has known."
Aunt Beatrice looked from Muriel's room to the darkening plain beyond the garden. Her gentle voice grew sharp with unconscious bitterness.
"But even more for your own sake, dear. You will marry, I am sure. Marriage is the—the crown and joy of woman's life—what we were born for—to have a husband and children, and a little home of your own. Of course there are some of us to whom the Lord has not pleased to give this. I'm sure I'm not complaining. There may be many compensations, and of course He knows best. But—it's all right while you're young, Muriel, and there's always a chance—and when my dear mother was alive and I had someone to look after I am sure no girl could have been happier. It's when you grow older and the people who needed you are dead. And you haven't a home nor anyone who really wants you—and you hate to stay too long in a house in case someone else should want to come—and of course it's quite right. Somebody had to look after Mother. Everybody can't marry. I'm not complaining. I'm sure they're very kind to me, but I sometimes pray that the good Lord won't make me wait here very long—that I can die before every one gets tired of me, and of having me staying round——"