“You may surely mend your things yourself, you are big enough. You can talk for yourself and me too,” cried Ursula with sudden impetuosity; and then she sat and worked, her needle flying through the meshes of her darning, though it is hard to darn stockings in that impassioned way. They were socks of Johnnie’s, however, with holes in the heels that you could put your fist through, and the way in which the big spans filled themselves up under this influence was wonderful to see. Janey, who was not fond of mending, set to work quite humbly under the influence of this example, and made two or three attempts to begin a conversation but without avail.
The girls were seated thus in a disturbed and restless silence, working as if for their lives, when the usual little jar of the gate and sound of the bell downstairs announced a visitor. On ordinary occasions, they were both in the habit of rushing to the window when the gate was opened to see who was coming, and Janey had thrown aside her work to do so when a look from Ursula stopped her. High-spirited as Janey was, she did not dare to disobey that look. By right of the passion that had got possession of her, Ursula took the absolute command of the situation in a way she had never done before, and some sudden intuition made her aware who it was who was coming. The girls both sat there still and breathless, waiting for his appearance. He never came in the day, never had been seen in the Parsonage at that hour before, and yet Ursula was as certain who it was as if she had seen him a mile off. He came into the room, himself looking a little breathless and disturbed, and gave a quick impatient look at Janey as he went up to her sister. Ursula saw it and understood well enough. Janey was in his way; he had come this morning with a special purpose. Her heart sank down to her very shoes, and then rose again with a feverish and unreal leap. Was it not her duty to take the initiative, to cut away the very ground from beneath his feet? He took a seat, not far from where she was sitting, and made an effort to begin a little ordinary conversation, throwing frequent glances at Janey. He said it was a fine day, which was self-evident; that he almost feared they would be out; that he had come to—to tell her something he had forgotten last night, about—yes, about—Cassiopeia’s chair, to correct what he said about Orion—yes, that was it; and again he looked at Janey, who saw his looks, and wondered much what she ought to do—go away, as he evidently wished her, or stay and listen, which was the eager desire of her mind. When Ursula lifted her head from her darning, and looked at him with cheeks alternately white and crimson, Janey felt herself grow hot and breathless with kindred excitement, and knew that the moment had come.
“Mr. Northcote,” said Ursula, looking at him fixedly, so fixedly that a nervous trembling ran over him, “I have a question to ask you. You have been coming to us very often, and perhaps papa may know, but I don’t. Is it true that you made a speech about Reginald when you first came here?”
Janey, looking eagerly on, saw Northcote grow pale, nay, grey in the fresh daylight. The colour seemed to ebb out of him. He started very slightly, as if waking up, when she began to speak, and then sat looking at her, growing greyer and greyer. A moment elapsed before he made any reply.
“Yes, I did,” he said, with a half-groan of pain in his voice.
“You did! really you did! Oh!” cried Ursula, the hot tears falling suddenly out of her eyes, while she still looked at him, “I was hoping that it was all some horrible mistake, that you would have laughed. I hoped you would laugh and say no.”
Northcote cleared his throat; they were waiting for him to defend himself. Janey, holding herself on the leash, as it were, keeping herself back from springing upon him like a hound. Ursula gazed at him with great blazing reproachful eyes; and all he could do was to give that sign of embarrassment, of guilt, and confusion. He could not utter a word. By the time he had got himself wound up to the point of speech, Ursula, impatient, had taken the words out of his mouth.
“Reginald is my brother,” she said. “Whatever is against him is against us all; we have never had any separate interests. Didn’t you think it strange, Mr. Northcote, to come to this house, among us all, when you had been so unkind to him?”
“Miss May—”
He made a broken sort of outcry and motion of his head, and then cleared his throat nervously once more.
“Did you think how your own brothers and sisters would have stood up for you? that it would have been an offence to them if anybody had come to the house who was not a friend to you? that they would have had a right—”
“Miss May,” said the culprit; “all this I have felt to the bottom of my heart; that I was here on false pretences—that I had no right to be here. But this painful feeling was all quenched and extinguished, and turned into gratitude by the goodness of your father and brother. I did not even know that you had not been told. I thought you were aware from the beginning. You were colder than they were, and I
