'It is very easy to see the right for other people,' said Marian, with rather a sad smile.
'Yes, only other people don't mind that, unless you do the right for yourself; and that is the thing in you, Marian. If you had said anything, I should not have minded it half so much; but your 'I don't know,' cut me home.'
'I am sorry--'
'No, don't be sorry, for I am glad. If you had not come before all the good of Miss Cameron had gone off from me, what should I have been? O, Marian, I am very glad you are come back; I did not know I liked you half so well till you were gone.'
'I am sure I might say the same' almost whispered Marian, in a choked tone, under her bonnet. Caroline caught it up eagerly, and seizing her by both hands, exclaimed, stooping forward to peep at her face, 'Marian, Marian, do you say so? And are you really not so very miserable at coming back to us?'
A tear, one of Marian's very reluctant tears, actually rushed from her eye, and with a hard struggle to speak, she said, 'Miserable! how can you say so? You are so very kind to me.'
'And do you not hate us?' said Caroline, with, an arch look of delight, then softened into something of mournfulness. 'Nay, I did not mean that; but you can bear to be with us after your own Agnes,--after those good people,--after such a home as Fern Torr?'
'O, Caroline, this is very unlike my first coming to you!'
'Yes, I know we were not kind; we were not as we ought to have been to you.'
'No, no, no; I was stiff and disagreeable; I would not be pleased,' said Marian, forgetting all coldness but her own.
'No wonder. O, Marian,' and Caroline's voice trembled, 'no one knows better than I do how much there is to be lamented in our ways of going on,--how different our house is from Fern Torr.' Marian could not say no. 'You were too good for us; you are still, I would not see you like us; but if we could make you comfortable enough to think Oakworthy not an exile, but something like a home, how glad I should be!'
Marian laid her hand on Caroline's arm; and, with an effort that cost her a spasm in her throat, she said, 'You have!' Not another word could she get out; but this was enough. Caroline kissed her for the first time in her life, except at the formal partings at bed-time, and there were tears on both their faces. After a time, Caroline broke into the flood of thoughts in her cousin's mind, by saying, playfully, 'When folks are missed, then they are mourned, people say; and I am sure you deserve the compliment, for till you were gone, I never knew your value. How many silly fancies of Clara's have flourished, for want of your indifference to put them down! How stupid it has been not to have you to read with, or talk to! How lonely the drawing-room has been, and nothing but nonsense if I went to the schoolroom. And then the boys,--Lionel has been so unruly there was no bearing it, and grumbling for you every day; and Johnny,--O, Marian, do you know it is settled that Johnny goes to sea, after all?'
'Johnny! I know he wished it, but I thought Mrs. Lyddell never would make up her mind to it.'
'Ah! there have been storms in the higher quarters,' said Caroline, with would-be gaiety. 'You are very lucky to have been away all this time, for it has been by no means a serene sky. You know,' she proceeded with gravity, 'they say the times are bad; well, in the midst of papa's vexation at the tenants asking for a reduction of rent, in came a whole lot of Elliot's long bills, which made papa lecture Walter and me one whole evening on economy, and caused him to be extremely annoyed with everything and everybody, and to say mamma must give up her opposition to Johnny's being a sailor; and I never saw mamma take anything so really to heart. It has been very uncomfortable; and in the midst came this business of poor Miss Morley, who had rather harder measure in consequence.'
'Poor little woman! Well, she was very good-natured,' said Marian, glad to turn the conversation from this account of family matters, not given in the pleasantest style, but rather as if Caroline was trying to conceal her real feelings by an air of satire.
'She was like a child in authority. You see, we, who know her well,
