venture to conclude that there was a mystery in the life of a man so blameless, so truly pious? It shocked one even to think of it.
There was a silence between us, to which the housemaid offered a welcome interruption. Dinner was ready.
He kissed me before we left the room. 'One word more, Helena,' he said, 'and I have done. Let there be no more talk between us about Elizabeth Chance.'
CHAPTER XVII. HELENA'S DIARY.
Miss Jillgall joined us at the dinner-table, in a state of excitement, carrying a book in her hand.
I am inclined, on reflection, to suspect that she is quite clever enough to have discovered that I hate her—and that many of the aggravating things she says and does are assumed, out of retaliation, for the purpose of making me angry. That ugly face is a double face, or I am much mistaken.
To return to the dinner-table, Miss Jillgall addressed herself, with an air of playful penitence, to my father.
'Dear cousin, I hope I have not done wrong. Helena left me all by myself. When I had finished darning the curtain, I really didn't know what to do. So I opened all the bedroom doors upstairs and looked into the rooms. In the big room with two beds—oh, I am so ashamed—I found this book. Please look at the first page.'
My father looked at the title-page: 'Doctor Watts's Hymns. Well, Selina, what is there to be ashamed of in this?'
'Oh, no! no! It's the wrong page. Do look at the other page—the one that comes first before that one.'
My patient father turned to the blank page.
'Ah,' he said quietly, 'my other daughter's name is written in it—the daughter whom you have not seen. Well?'
Miss Jillgall clasped her hands distractedly. 'It's my ignorance I'm so ashamed of. Dear cousin, forgive me, enlighten me. I don't know how to pronounce your other daughter's name. Do you call her Euneece?'
The dinner was getting cold. I was provoked into saying: 'No, we don't.'
She had evidently not forgiven me for leaving her by herself. 'Pardon me, Helena, when I want information I don't apply to you: I sit, as it were, at the feet of your learned father. Dear cousin, is it—'
Even my father declined to wait for his dinner any longer. 'Pronounce it as you like, Selina. Here we say Euni'ce—with the accent on the 'i' and with the final 'e' sounded: Eu-ni'-see. Let me give you some soup.'
Miss Jillgall groaned. 'Oh, how difficult it seems to be! Quite beyond my poor brains! I shall ask the dear girl's leave to call her Euneece. What very strong soup! Isn't it rather a waste of meat? Give me a little more, please.'
I discovered another of Miss Jillgall's peculiarities. Her appetite was enormous, and her ways were greedy. You heard her eat her soup. She devoured the food on her plate with her eyes before she put it into her mouth; and she criticised our English cookery in the most impudent manner, under pretense of asking humbly how it was done. There was, however, some temporary compensation for this. We had less of her talk while she was eating her dinner.
With the removal of the cloth, she recovered the use of her tongue; and she hit on the one subject of all others which proves to be the sorest trial to my father's patience.
'And now, dear cousin, let us talk of your other daughter, our absent Euneece. I do so long to see her. When is she coming back?'
'In a few days more.'
'How glad I am! And do tell me—which is she? Your oldest girl or your youngest?'
'Neither the one nor the other, Selina.'
'Oh, my head! my head! This is even worse than the accent on the 'i' and the final 'e.' Stop! I am cleverer than I thought I was. You mean that the girls are twins. Are they both so exactly like each other that I shan't know which is which? What fun!'
When the subject of our ages was unluckily started at Mrs. Staveley's, I had slipped out of the difficulty easily by assuming the character of the eldest sister—an example of ready tact which my dear stupid Eunice doesn't understand. In my father's presence, it is needless to say that I kept silence, and left it to him. I was sorry to be obliged to do this. Owing to his sad state of health, he is easily irritated—especially by inquisitive strangers.
'I must leave you,' he answered, without taking the slightest notice of what Miss Jillgall had said to him. 'My work is waiting for me.'
She stopped him on his way to the door. 'Oh, tell me—can't I help you?'
'Thank you; no.'
'Well—but tell me one thing. Am I right about the twins?'
'You are wrong.'
Miss Jillgall's demonstrative hands flew up into the air again, and expressed the climax of astonishment by quivering over her head. 'This is positively maddening,' she declared. 'What does it mean?'
'Take my advice, cousin. Don't attempt to find out what it means.'
He left the room. Miss Jillgall appealed to me. I imitated my father's wise brevity of expression: 'Sorry to disappoint you, Selina; I know no more about it than you do. Come upstairs.'
Every step of the way up to the drawing-room was marked by a protest or an inquiry. Did I expect her to believe that I couldn't say which of us was the elder of the two? that I didn't really know what my father's motive
