"Won't you eat? Have you breakfasted?"
The plate of bread-and-butter looked delicious to the half-starved girl: the warm cup of tea seemed to bring life into her. She had been silent from surprise, and a sort of humiliated embarrassment; but now her spirits began to revive, and she said, "I never expected to have seen you again, Miss Melwyn!"
"Miss Melwyn! What does that mean? Dear Lettice, how has all this come about?"
"My father was ill the last time you were in Nottinghamshire, do you not recollect, Miss Melwyn? He never recovered of that illness; but it lasted nearly two years. During that time, your aunt, Mrs. Montague, died; and her house was sold, and new people came; and you never were at Castle Rising afterward."
"No – indeed – and from that day to this have never chanced to hear any thing of its inhabitants. But Mrs. Price, your aunt, who was so fond of Myra, what is become of her?"
"She died before my poor father."
"Well; but she was rich. Did she do nothing?"
"Every body thought her rich, because she spent a good deal of money; but hers was only income. Our poor aunt was no great economist – she made no savings."
"Well; and your mother? I can not understand it. No; I can not understand it," Catherine kept repeating. "So horrible! dear, dear Lettice – and your shawl is quite wet, and so is your bonnet, poor, dear girl. Why did you not put up your umbrella?"
"For a very good reason, dear Miss Melwyn; because I do not possess one."
"Call me Catherine, won't you? or I will not speak to you again." But Mrs. Danvers's inquiring looks seemed now to deserve a little attention. She seemed impatient to have the enigma of this strange scene solved. Catherine caught her eye, and, turning from her friend, with whom she had been so much absorbed as to forget every thing else, she said:
"Lettice Arnold is a clergyman's daughter, ma'am."
"I began to think something of that sort," said Mrs. Danvers; "but, my dear young lady, what can have brought you to this terrible state of destitution?"
"Misfortune upon misfortune, madam. My father was, indeed, a clergyman, and held the little vicarage of Castle Rising. There Catherine," looking affectionately up at her, "met me upon her visits to her aunt, Mrs. Montague."
"We have known each other from children," put in Catherine.
The door opened, and Reynolds appeared —
"The cab is waiting, if you please, Miss Melwyn."
"Oh, dear! oh, dear! I can't go just this moment. Bid the man wait."
"It is late already," said Reynolds, taking out his watch. "The train starts in twenty minutes."
"Oh, dear! oh, dear! and when does the next go? I can't go by this. Can I, dear Mrs. Danvers? It is impossible."
"Another starts in an hour afterward."
"Oh! that will do – tell Sarah to be ready for that. Well, my dear, go on, go on – dear Lettice, you were about to tell us how all this happened – but just another cup of tea. Do you like it strong?"
"I like it any way," said Lettice, who was beginning to recover her spirits, "I have not tasted any thing so comfortable for a very long time."
"Dear me! dear me!"
"You must have suffered very much, I fear, my dear young lady," said Mrs. Danvers, in a kind voice of interest, "before you could have sunk to the level of that miserable home where I found you."
"Yes," said Lettice. "Every one suffers very much, be the descent slow or rapid, when he has to fall so far. But what were my sufferings to poor Myra's!"
"And why were your sufferings as nothing in comparison with poor Myra's?"
"Ah, madam, there are some in this world not particularly favored by nature or fortune, who were born to be denied; who are used to it from their childhood – it becomes a sort of second nature to them, as it were. They scarcely feel it. But a beautiful girl, adored by an old relation, accustomed to every sort of indulgence and luxury! They doated upon the very ground she trod on. Oh! to be cast down to such misery, that is dreadful."
"I don't see – I don't know," said Catherine, who, like the world in general, however much they might admire, and however much too many might flatter Myra, greatly preferred Lettice to her sister.
"I don't know," said she, doubtingly.
"Ah! but you would know if you could see!" said the generous girl. "If you could see what she suffers from every thing – from things that I do not even feel, far less care for – you would be so sorry for her."
Mrs. Danvers looked with increasing interest upon the speaker. She seemed to wish to go on with the conversation about this sister, so much pitied; so she said, "I believe what you say is very true. Very true, Catherine, in spite of your skeptical looks. Some people really do suffer very much more than others under the same circumstances of privation."
"Yes, selfish people like Myra," thought Catherine, but she said nothing.
"Indeed, madam, it is so. They seem to feel every thing so much more. Poor Myra – I can sleep like a top in our bed, and she very often can not close her eyes – and the close room, and the poor food. I can get along – I was made to rough it, my poor aunt always said – but Myra!"
"Well but," rejoined Catherine, "do pray tell us how you came to this cruel pass? Your poor father – "
"His illness was very lingering and very painful – and several times a surgical operation was required. My mother could not bear – could any of us? – to have it done by the poor blundering operator of that remote village. To have a surgeon from Nottingham was very expensive; and then the medicines; and the necessary food and attendance. The kindest and most provident father can not save much out of one hundred and ten pounds a year, and what was saved was soon all gone."
"Well, well," repeated Catherine, her eyes fixed with intense interest upon the speaker.
"His deathbed was a painful scene," Lettice went on, her face displaying her emotion, while she with great effort restrained her tears: "he trusted in God; but there was a fearful prospect before us, and he could not help trembling for his children. Dear, dear father! he reproached himself for his want of faith, and would try to strengthen us, 'but the flesh,' he said, 'was weak.' He could not look forward without anguish. It was a fearful struggle to be composed and confiding – he could not help being anxious. It was for us, you know, not for himself."
"Frightful!" cried Catherine, indignantly; "frightful! that a man of education, a scholar, a gentleman, a man of so much activity in doing good, and so much power in preaching it, should be brought to this. One hundred and ten pounds a year, was that all? How could you exist?"
"We had the house and the garden besides, you know, and my mother was such an excellent manager; and my father! No religious of the severest order was ever more self-denying, and there was only me. My aunt Price, you know, took Myra – Myra had been delicate from a child, and was so beautiful, and she was never made to rough it, my mother and my aunt said. Now I seemed made expressly for the purpose," she added, smiling with perfect simplicity.
"And his illness, so long! and so expensive!" exclaimed Catherine, with a sort of cry.
"Yes, it was – and to see the pains he took that it should not be expensive. He would be quite annoyed if my mother got any thing nicer than usual for his dinner. She used to be obliged to make a mystery of it; and we were forced almost to go down upon our knees to get him to have the surgeon from Nottingham. Nothing but the idea that his life would be more secure in such hands could have persuaded him into it. He knew how important that was to us. As for the pain which the bungling old doctor hard by would have given him, he would have borne that rather than have spent money. Oh, Catherine! there have been times upon times when I have envied the poor. They have hospitals to go to; they are not ashamed to ask for a little wine from those who have it; they can beg when they