The Clever Woman of the Family [29]
stroking the child's face as it looked at her, earnest to glean fresh fragments of the terrible half-known tale of the past. "Yes, Rosie, when you go and keep house for papa on the top of the Oural Mountains, or wherever it may be, you are to remember that if Aunt Ermine had not been in a foolish, inattentive mood, and had taken his dangerous goods out of the way, she might have been trotting to church now like other people. But poor Ailie has always helped herself to the whole blame, and if every childish fit of temper were the root of such qualities, what a world we should have here!" "Ah! no wonder she is devoted to you." "The child was not fifteen, had never known cross or care, but from that moment she never was out of my room if it was possible to be in; and when nurse after nurse was fairly worn out, because I could not help being so distressing, there was always that poor child, always handy and helpful, growing to be the chief dependence, and looking so piteously imploring whatever was tried, that it really helped me to go through with it. Poor Ailie," she added with an odd turn of playfulness, "I always fancied those frowns of anxiety made her eyebrows grow together. And ever since we came here, we know how she has worked away for her old cinder and her small Rosebud, don't we?" she added, playfully squeezing the child's cheeks up into a more budding look, hiding deeper and more overcoming feelings by the sportive action. And as her sister came back, she looked up and shook her head at her, saying,-- "You gossiping Ailie, to go ripping up old grievances. I am going to ask Miss Curtis not to let the story go any farther, now you have relieved your mind of it." "I did tell Lady Temple," said Alison; "I never think it right not to let people know what sort of person they have to teach their children." And Grace, on feeling her way, discovered that Lady Temple had been told the bare fact in Miss Williams's reserved and business-like manner, but with nothing of the affair that had led to it. She merely looked on it in the manner fully expressed by--"Ah, poor thing; how sad for her!" as a shocking secret, never to be talked of or thought about. And that voluntary detailed relation from Alison could only be regarded as drawn forth by Grace's own individual power of winning confidence, and the friendliness that had so long subsisted between them. Nor indeed was the reserve regarding the cause of the present reduced circumstances of the sisters at all lessened; it was only known that their brother had ruined them by a fraudulent speculation, and had then fled to the Continent, leaving them burthened with the maintenance of his child, but that they refused to believe in his guilt, and had thus incurred the displeasure of other relatives and friends. Alison was utterly silent about him. Ermine seemed to have a tender pleasure in bringing in a reference to his ways as if all were well, and it were a matter of course to speak of "Edward;" but it was plain that Ermine's was an outspoken nature. This might, however, be only because the one had been a guarded, sheltered invalid, while the other had gone forth among strangers to battle for a livelihood, and moreover, the elder sister had been fully grown and developed before the shock which had come on the still unformed Alison. At any rate, nobody but Grace "got on" with the governess, while the invalid made friends with all who visited her, and most signally with Rachel, who, ere long, esteemed her environment a good work, worthy of herself. The charity of sitting with a twaddling, muffatee- knitting old lady was indisputable, but it was perfectly within Grace's capacity; and Rachel believed herself to be far more capable of entertaining the sick Miss Williams, nor was she mistaken. When excited or interested, most people thought her oppressive; but Ermine Williams, except when unwell, did not find her so, and even then a sharp debate was sometimes a cure for the nervous ailments induced by the monotony