The Frances Hodgson Burnett MEGAPACK ®. Frances Hodgson Burnett

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      “Your gown is splendid, sister,” said Anne, with modest shyness. “There will be no beauty who will wear another like it; or should there be one, she will not carry it as you will.”

      “But the man—the man, Anne,” Clorinda laughed again. “What of the man?”

      Anne plucked up just enough of her poor spirit to raise her eyes to the brilliant ones that mocked at her.

      “With such gentlemen, sister,” she said, “is it like that I have aught to do?”

      Mistress Clorinda dropped her hand and left laughing.

      “’Tis true,” she said, “it is not; but for this one time, Anne, thou lookest almost a woman.”

      “’Tis not beauty alone that makes womanhood,” said Anne, her head on her breast again. “In some book I have read that—that it is mostly pain. I am woman enough for that.”

      “You have read—you have read,” quoted Clorinda. “You are the bookworm, I remember, and filch romances and poems from the shelves. And you have read that it is mostly pain that makes a woman? ’Tis not true. ’Tis a poor lie. I am a woman and I do not suffer—for I will not, that I swear! And when I take an oath I keep it, mark you! It is men women suffer for; that was what your scholar meant—for such fine gentlemen as the one you have just watched while he rode away. More fools they! No man shall make me womanly in such a fashion, I promise you! Let them wince and kneel; I will not.”

      “Sister,” Anne faltered, “I thought you were not within. The gentleman who rode away—did the servants know?”

      “That did they,” quoth Clorinda, mocking again. “They knew that I would not receive him today, and so sent him away. He might have known as much himself, but he is an arrant popinjay, and thinks all women wish to look at his fine shape, and hear him flatter them when he is in the mood.”

      “You would not—let him enter?”

      Clorinda threw her graceful body into a chair with more light laughter.

      “I would not,” she answered. “You cannot understand such ingratitude, poor Anne; you would have treated him more softly. Sit down and talk to me, and I will show thee my furbelows myself. All women like to chatter of their laced bodices and petticoats. That is what makes a woman.”

      Anne was tremulous with relief and pleasure. It was as if a queen had bid her to be seated. She sat almost with the humble lack of case a serving-woman might have shown. She had never seen Clorinda wear such an air before, and never had she dreamed that she would so open herself to any fellow-creature. She knew but little of what her sister was capable—of the brilliancy of her charm when she chose to condescend, of the deigning softness of her manner when she chose to please, of her arch-pleasantries and cutting wit, and of the strange power she could wield over any human being, gentle or simple, with whom she came in contact. But if she had not known of these things before, she learned to know them this morning. For some reason best known to herself, Mistress Clorinda was in a high good humour. She kept Anne with her for more than an hour, and was dazzling through every moment of its passing. She showed her the splendours she was to shine in at the birth-night ball, even bringing forth her jewels and displaying them. She told her stories of the house of which the young heir today attained his majority, and mocked at the poor youth because he was ungainly, and at a distance had been her slave since his nineteenth year.

      “I have scarce looked at him,” she said. “He is a lout, with great eyes staring, and a red nose. It does not need that one should look at men to win them. They look at us, and that is enough.”

      To poor Mistress Anne, who had seen no company and listened to no wits, the entertainment bestowed upon her was as wonderful as a night at the playhouse would have been. To watch the vivid changing face; to hearken to jesting stories of men and women who seemed like the heroes and heroines of her romances; to hear love itself—the love she trembled and palpitated at the mere thought of—spoken of openly as an experience which fell to all; to hear it mocked at with dainty or biting quips; to learn that women of all ages played with, enjoyed, or lost themselves for it—it was with her as if a nun had been withdrawn from her cloister and plunged into the vortex of the world.

      “Sister,” she said, looking at the Beauty with humble, adoring eyes, “you make me feel that my romances are true. You tell such things. It is like seeing pictures of things to hear you talk. No wonder that all listen to you, for indeed ’tis wonderful the way you have with words. You use them so that ’tis as though they had shapes of their own and colours, and you builded with them. I thank you for being so gracious to me, who have seen so little, and cannot tell the poor, quiet things I have seen.”

      And being led into the loving boldness by her gratitude, she bent forward and touched with her lips the fair hand resting on the chair’s arm.

      Mistress Clorinda fixed her fine eyes upon her in a new way.

      “I’ faith, it doth not seem fair, Anne,” she said. “I should not like to change lives with thee. Thou hast eyes like a shot pheasant—soft, and with the bright hid beneath the dull. Some man might love them, even if thou art no beauty. Stay,” suddenly; “methinks—”

      She uprose from her chair and went to the oaken wardrobe, and threw the door of it open wide while she looked within.

      “There is a gown and tippet or so here, and a hood and some ribands I might do without,” she said. “My woman shall bear them to your chamber, and show you how to set them to rights. She is a nimble-fingered creature, and a gown of mine would give almost stuff enough to make you two. Then some days, when I am not going abroad and Mistress Margery frets me too much, I will send for you to sit with me, and you shall listen to the gossip when a visitor drops in to have a dish of tea.”

      Anne would have kissed her feet then, if she had dared to do so. She blushed red all over, and adored her with a more worshipping gaze than before.

      “I should not have dared to hope so much,” she stammered. “I could not—perhaps it is not fitting—perhaps I could not bear myself as I should. I would try to show myself a gentlewoman and seemly. I—I am a gentlewoman, though I have learned so little. I could not be aught but a gentlewoman, could I, sister, being of your own blood and my parents’ child?” half afraid to presume even this much.

      “No,” said Clorinda. “Do not be a fool, Anne, and carry yourself too humbly before the world. You can be as humble as you like to me.”

      “I shall—I shall be your servant and worship you, sister,” cried the poor soul, and she drew near and kissed again the white hand which had bestowed with such royal bounty all this joy. It would not have occurred to her that a cast-off robe and riband were but small largesse.

      It was not a minute after this grateful caress that Clorinda made a sharp movement—a movement which was so sharp that it seemed to be one of dismay. At first, as if involuntarily, she had raised her hand to her tucker, and after doing so she started—though’twas but for a second’s space, after which her face was as it had been before.

      “What is it?” exclaimed Anne. “Have you lost anything?”

      “No,” quoth Mistress Clorinda quite carelessly, as she once more turned to the contents of the oaken wardrobe; “but I thought I missed a trinket I was wearing for a wager, and I would not lose it before the bet is won.”

      “Sister,” ventured Anne before she left her СКАЧАТЬ