Fancy the evening star
climbing up--up--you know in the sunset!'
'Portentous, certainly! Yet still I wish you could have found it in
your heart to take advantage of any feeler towards sympathy.'
'How could I pretend to admire such stuff?'
'You need not pretend; but there are two ways of taking hold of a thing
without being untrue. If you had been a little wiser and more
forbearing you need not have given Dolores such a shock as would drive
her in upon herself. Depend upon it, the older you grow, the more
dangerous you will find it to begin by hitting the blots.'
Gillian looked on in some curiosity when the next day good Miss Hacket,
enchanted with her dear Connie's success, trotted up to display the
lines to Lady Merrifield, who on her side felt bound to set an example
alike of tenderness and sincerity, and was glad to be able to observe,
'The lines run very smoothly. This must be a great pleasure to her.'
'Indeed it is! Connie is so clever. I always say I can't think where
she got it from; but we always tried to give her very advantage, and
she was quite a favourite pupil at Miss Dormer's. Is not it a sweet
idea, the stillness of the evening broken by the sounds of battle, and
then it proving to be only our brave defenders?'
'Yes,' was the answer. 'I have often thought of that, and of what it
might be to hear those volleys of musketry in earnest. It has made me
very thankful.'
So Miss Hacket went away gratified, and Gillian owned that it would
have been useless to wound the good lady's feelings by criticism,
though her mother made her understand that if her opinion had been
asked, or Connie herself had shown the verses, it would have been
desirable to point out the faults, in a kindly spirit.
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