“Yes, all that is unpleasant!” said Verna; “the kicks, but not the halfpence; the battles with the servants, and everything that is disagreeable--” “Verna! if I promise never to do anything but what you like, never to say anything you don’t approve of--to do always what you advise me? Oh, Verna! if I say I will be your slave!” cried Matilda, throwing herself upon her sister’s neck. Then Verna allowed herself to be softened. “I didn’t want to come,” she said. “I came for your sake, and poor Charlie’s. I don’t want to stay; it’s cold and wretched here; I like India a great deal better; but if I should try a little while longer, and make an attempt to keep you straight, will you promise to take my advice, and do what I tell you? It is of no use my staying otherwise. I am quite ready to pack up and go back to India; make up your mind what you will do.” “I will do whatever you please,” said Matilda, dissolved in tears. “For you know you are a fool,” said Verna calmly; “you always were; when you came out a girl, and gave us all that trouble about the cadets in the ship--when you married poor Charlie, and led him such a life--when you came back here and insulted Miss Heriot, and made the house miserable; you have always been a fool, and I suppose you cannot be different; but, at least, you ought to know.” “Oh, Verna, I will!” cried the penitent; and it was thus with her blue eyes running over with tears, with her lips quivering, and her pretty face melting into its most piteous aspect, that Mr. Hepburn found the young mistress of the house when he went to Pitcomlie, charged with a message, which Marjory, wearied by his importunate desire to serve her, had invented for the purpose. He had not been thinking of Mrs. Charles. She was Marjory’s supplanter to him, and a thoroughly objectionable personage. But when he came suddenly into the room, and saw this weeping creature with her fair hair ruffled by her emotion, tears hanging on her eyelashes, her piteous little pretty mouth trembling and quivering, the sight went to the young man’s susceptible heart. No secondary trouble, such as quarrels with her servants, or the desolation consequent upon that amusement occurred to him as the possible cause for the state in which he found her; no doubt crossed his mind that it was the woe of her widowhood that was overwhelming her. He stopped short at the door out of respect for the sorrow into which he had intruded unawares. He explained with perturbation that he was the bearer of a message; he begged pardon metaphorically upon his knees. “Pray, pray assure your sister that I would not have intruded for the world; that I feel for her most deeply,” he said, the sympathetic tears coming to his own eyes. “She will be better presently,” said wise Verna; “and it will do her good to see some one. She indulges her feelings too much. Poor child! perhaps it is not wonderful in her circumstances--”