"It isn't nice," said Blue, agreeing perfectly, but unwilling to recant; "still, it may be our duty to think of it. Sophia said once that a woman was always more or less responsible if a man fell in love with her."

"Did Sophia say that?" Weighty worlds of responsibility seemed to be settling on little Red's shoulders.

"Yes; she was talking to mamma about something. So, as it's quite possible he might fall in love with us, we _ought_ to consider the matter."

"You don't think he's falling in love with Eliza, do you?"

"Oh no!"--promptly--"but then Eliza isn't like us."

Red looked at her pretty face in the gla.s.s as she continued to smooth out the brown curls. She thought of Eliza's tall figure, immobile white face, and crown of red hair.

"No," she said, meditatively; "but, Blue"--this quite seriously--"I hope he won't fall in love with us."

"Oh, so do I; for it would make him feel so miserable. But I think, Red, when you looked down you did not look _prim_ enough--you know papa said 'prim.' Now, you stand, and I'll do it."

So Blue now pa.s.sed down the little narrow room, but when she came to the critical spot, the supposed meeting ground, her desire to laugh conflicting with the effort to pull a long face, caused such a wry contortion of her plump visage that seriousness deserted them once more, and they bubbled over in mirth that would have been boisterous had it not been prudently m.u.f.fled in the pillows.

After that they said their prayers. But when they had taken off the clumsy dressing-gowns and got into the feather-bed under the big patchwork quilt, like two little white rabbits nestling into one another, they reverted once more to their father's instructions for meeting the dentist, and giggled themselves to sleep.

Another pair of talkers, also with some common attributes of character, but with less knowledge of each other, were astir after these sisters had fallen asleep.

Most of the rooms in the house were on the ground-floor, but there were two attic bedrooms opening off a very large room in the roof which the former occupant had used as a granary. One of these Sophia occupied with a child; the other had been given to Eliza. That night, when Sophia was composing herself to sleep, she heard Eliza weeping. So smothered were the sounds of sorrow that she could hardly hear them. She lifted her head, listened, then, putting a long fur cloak about her, went into the next room.

No sooner was her hand on the latch of Eliza's door than all sound ceased. She stood for a minute in the large, dark granary. The draught in it was almost great enough to be called a breeze, and it whispered in the eaves which the sloping rafters made round the edges of the floor as a wind might sigh in some rocky cave. Sophia opened the door and went in.

"What is the matter, Eliza?"

Even in the almost darkness she could see that the girl's movement Was an involuntary feigning of surprise.

"Nothing."

"I used to hear you crying when we first came, Eliza, and now you have begun it again. Tell me what troubles you. Why do you pretend that nothing is the matter?"

The cold glimmer of the light of night reflected on snow came in at the diamond-shaped window, and the little white bed was just shadowed forth to Sophia's sight. The girl in it might have been asleep, she remained so quiet.

"Are you thinking about your father?"

"I don't know."

"Do you dislike being here?"

"No; but--"

"But what? What is troubling you, Eliza? You're not a girl to cry for nothing. Since you came to us I have seen that you are a straightforward, good girl; and you have plenty of sense, too. Come, tell me how it is you cry like this?"

Eliza sat up. "You won't tell them downstairs?" she said slowly.

"You may trust me not to repeat anything that is not necessary."

Eliza moved nervously, and her movements suggested hopelessness of trouble and difficulty of speech. Sophia pitied her.

"I don't know," she said restlessly, stretching out aimless hands into the darkness, "I don't know why I cry, Miss Sophia. It isn't for one thing more than another; everything is the reason--everything, everything."

"You mean, for one thing, that your father has gone, and you are homesick?"

"You said you wouldn't _tell?_"

"Yes."

"Well, I'm not sorry about _that_, because--well, I suppose I liked father as well as he liked me, but as long as he lived I'd have had to stay on the clearin', and I hated that. I'm glad to be here; but, oh! I want so much--I want so much--oh, Miss Sophia, don't you know?"

In some mysterious way Sophia felt that she did know, although she could not in any way formulate her confused feeling of kinship with this young girl, so far removed from her in outward experience. It seemed to her that she had at some time known such trouble as this, which was composed of wanting "so much--so much," and hands that were stretched, not towards any living thing, but vaguely to all possible possession outside the longing self.

"I want to be something," said Eliza, "rich or--I don't know--I would like to drive about in a fine way like some ladies do, or wear grander clothes than any one. Yes, I would like to keep a shop, or do something to make me very rich, and make everybody wish they were like me."

Sophia smiled to herself, but the darkness was about them. Then Sophia sighed. Crude as were the notions that went to make up the ignorant idea of what was desirable, the desire for it was without measure. There was a silence, and when Eliza spoke again Sophia did not doubt but that she told her whole mind.

It is a curious thing, this, that when a human being of average experience is confided in, the natural impulse is to a.s.sume that confidence is complete, and the adviser feels as competent to p.r.o.nounce upon the case from the statement given as if minds were as limpid as crystal, and words as fit to represent them as a mirror is to show the objects it reflects. Yet if the listener would but look within, he would know that in any complicated question of life there would be much that he would not, more than he could not, tell of himself, unless long years of closest companionship had revealed the one heart to the other in ways that are beyond the power of words. And that is so even if the whole heart is set to be honest above all--and how many hearts are so set?

"You see," said Eliza, "if people knew I had lived on a very poor clearin' and done the work, they'd despise me perhaps."

"It is no disgrace to any one to have worked hard, and it certainly cannot be a disadvantage in this country."

"It was rough."

"You are not very rough, Eliza. It strikes me that you have been pretty carefully trained and taught."

"Yes, I was that"--with satisfaction. "But don't you think, if I got on, grand people would always look down at me if they knew I'd lived so common? And besides, I'm sometimes afraid the man that went shares at the land with father will want to find me."

"But you said you told him you were coming away."

"I told him, plain and honest; but I had a long way to walk till I got to the train, and I just went off. But he won't find it so easy to fill my place, and get some one to do the housework! He'd have kept me, if he could; and if he heard where I was he might come and try to get me back by saying father said I was to obey him till I was twenty-one."

"If your father said--that--"

"No," cried the girl, vehemently, "he never did."

"You will hear from your uncle in Scotland?" said Sophia.

"I don't believe he'll write to me. I don't believe he lives any more where I sent the letter. It's years and years since father heard from him. I said I'd write because I thought it would look more respectable to Mrs. Rexford to have an uncle. And I did write; but he won't answer."

This was certainly frank.

"Was that honest, Eliza?"

"No, Miss Sophia; but I felt so miserable. It's hard to walk off with your bundle, and be all alone and afraid of a man coming after you, and being so angry. He was dreadful angry when I told him I'd come. If you'd only _promise_ not tell where I came from to anybody, so that it can't get round to him that I'm here, and so that people won't know how I lived before--"

"Well, we certainly have no reason to tell anybody. If it will make you content, I can a.s.sure you none of us will talk about your affairs. Was that all the trouble?"