“Oh, no!” cried the girl, with energy. “But most likely I shall not marry any one,” she added, with a half sigh; “Janey may, but the eldest has so much to do, and so much to think of. Cousin Anne has never married.”
“Nor Cousin Sophy either.” Sophy's laugh sounded hard to the girl. “Never mind, you will not be like us. You will marry, most likely, a clergyman, in a pretty parsonage in the country.”
“I do not think I am very fond of clergymen,” said Ursula, recovering her ease and composure. “They are always in and about, and everything has to be kept so quiet when they are studying; and then the parish people are always coming tramping upstairs with their dirty feet. When you have only one servant it is very, very troublesome. Sir Robert never gives any trouble,” she said, once more, with a soft little sigh.
“Papa?” said Sophy, somewhat surprised; “but you would not – ” she was going to say, marry papa; but when she looked at Ursula's innocent gravity, her absolute unconsciousness of the meanings which her chance words might bear, she refrained. “I think I must send Seton to help you,” she said, “you can not get through all that packing by yourself.”
“Oh yes, I am not tired. I have put in all my old things. The rest are your presents. Oh, Cousin Sophy!” said the girl, coming quickly to her and stealing two arms round her, “you have been so good to me! as if it was not enough to give me this holiday, the most delightful I ever had in my life – to send me home loaded with all these beautiful things! I shall never forget it, never, never, if I were to live a hundred years!”
“My dear!” cried Sophy, startled by the sudden energy of this embrace. Sophy was not emotional, but her eyes moistened and her voice softened in spite of herself. “But you must let me send Seton to you,” she said, hurrying away. She was excited by the day's events, and did not trust herself to make any further response; for if she “gave way” at all, who could tell how far the giving way might go? Her brother John had been married at the time when Sophy too ought to have been married, had all gone well – and, perhaps, some keen-piercing thought that she too might have had little children belonging to her, had given force and sharpness to her objections to the pale little distrustful Indian children who had shrunk from her overtures of affection. She went to her room and bathed her eyes, which were hot and painful, and then she went back to Anne in the sitting-room, who had opened the window to reduce the temperature, and was resting in an easy chair, and pondering what she could do to make the children love her, and to be a mother to them in the absence of Mrs. John.
“I have been talking to Ursula, who is always refreshing,” said Sophy. “I wonder whom that child will marry. She gave me to understand, in her awkward, innocent way, that she preferred papa. A laugh does one good,” Sophy added, slightly rubbing her eyes. Anne made no immediate answer. She scarcely heard indeed what her sister said.
“I think we shall get on after a while,” she said, softly. “They said their prayers very prettily, poor darlings, and let me kiss them without crying. After a while we shall get on, I don't fear.”
“Anne!” cried Sophy, “you are too much for mere human nature: you are too bad or too good for anything. I begin to hate these little wretches when I hear you speak of them so.”
“Hush!” said Anne, “I know you don't mean it. Easton will be very strange to them at first. I could not go to India for my part. A crust of bread at home would be better. Think of parting with your children just when they come to an age to understand?”
“John, I suppose, did not take children into consideration when he went away. You speak as if children were all one's life.”
“A great part of it,” said Anne, gently. “No, dear, I am not clever like you, and perhaps it is what you will call a low view; but after all it runs through everything. The flowers are used for the seed, and everything in the world is intended to keep the world going. Yes, even I, that is the good of me. I shall never be a mother, but what does that matter? There are so many children left on the world whom somebody must bring up.”
“And who are brought to you when they need you, and taken from you when they need you no longer,” said Sophy, indignantly; “you are left to bear the trouble – others have the recompense.”
“It is so in this world, my dear, all the way down, from God himself. Always looking for reward is mean and mercenary. When we do nothing, when we are of no use, what a poor thing life is,” said Anne, with a little colour rising in her cheeks, “not worth having. I think we have only a right to our existence when we are doing something. And I have my wages; I like to be of a little consequence,” she said, laughing. “Nobody is of any consequence who does not do something.”
“In that case, the ayah, the housemaid is of more consequence than you.”
“So be it – I don't object,” said Anne; “but I don't think so, for they have to be directed and guided. To be without a housemaid is dreadful. The moment you think of that, you see how important the people who work are; everything comes to a stand-still without Mary, whereas there are ladies whose absence would make no difference.”
“I, for instance.”
“You are very unkind to say so, Sophy; all the same, if you were to do more, you would be happier, my dear.”
“To do what? go on my knees to those wax dolls, and entreat them to let me pet them and make idols of them – as you will do?”
“Well, how are you getting on now?” said Sir Robert, coming in. “Ah! I see, you have the window open; but the room is still very warm. When they get to Easton they will have their own rooms of course. I don't want to reflect upon John, but it is rather a burden this he has saddled us with. Mrs. John's mother is living, isn't she? I think something might have been said at least, on her part, some offer to take her share.”
Sophy gave her sister a malicious glance, but promptly changed her tone, and took up her position in defence of the arrangement, with that ease which is natural in a family question.
“Of course,” she said, “your grandchildren, Dorsets, and the heir, probably, as Robert has no boy, could go nowhere, papa, but to us. It may be a bore, but at least John showed so much sense; for nothing else could be – ”
“John does not show very much sense in an ordinary way. What did he want with a wife and children at his age? The boy is five, isn't he? and the father only thirty – absurd! I did not marry till I was thirty, though I had succeeded before that time, and was the only son and the head of the family. John was always an ass,” said Sir Robert, with a crossness which sprang chiefly from the fact that the temperature of the room was higher than usual, and the habits of his evening interfered with. He was capable of sacrificing something of much more importance to his family, but scarcely of sacrificing his comfort, which is the last and most painful of efforts.
“That may be very true,” said Sophy, “but all the same, it is only right that the children should be with us. Mrs. John's people are not well off. Her mother has a large family of her own. The little things would have been spoiled, or they would have been neglected; and after all, they are Dorsets, though they are not like John.”
“Well, well, I suppose you are right,” said Sir Robert, grumbling, “and, thank Heaven, to-morrow we shall be at home.”
Anne had scarcely said a word, though it was she who was most deeply concerned about the children. She gave her sister a hug when Sir Robert relapsed into the evening paper, and then stole upstairs to look at the poor babies as they lay asleep. She was not a mother, and never would be. People, indeed, called her an old maid, and with reason enough, though she was little over thirty; for had she been seventy, she could not have been more unlikely to marry. It was not her vocation. She had plenty to do in the world without that, and was satisfied with her life. The sad reflection