'Very good of you to believe it.'
'I am sure of it, certain sure,' said Charlotte. 'How could you venture to think they would either of them do anything wrong?'
'I did not say they would.'
'What, not to write to each other when papa had forbidden it, and do it in secret, too?'
'My dear, don't look so innocently irate. Goodness has nothing to do with it, it would be only a moderate constancy. You know nothing at all of lovers.'
'If I know nothing of lovers, I know a great deal of Amy and Guy, and I am quite sure that nothing on earth would tempt them to do anything in secret that they were forbidden.'
'Wait till you are in love, and you'll change your mind.'
'I never mean to be in love,' said Charlotte indignantly. Eveleen laughed the more, Charlotte grew more angry and uncomfortable at the tone of the conversation, and was heartily glad that it was broken off by the entrance of the gentlemen. Guy helped Charles to the sofa, and then turned away to continue his endless talk on Redclyffe business with Markham. Charlotte flew up to the sofa, seized an interval when no one was in hearing, and kneeling down to bring her face on a level with her brother's whispered--'Charlie, Eva won't believe but that Guy and Amy kept up some intercourse last winter.'
'I can't help it, Charlotte.'
'When I tell her they did not, she only laughs at me. Do tell her they did not.'
'I have too much self-respect to lay myself open to ridicule.'
'Charlie, you don't think it possible yourself?' exclaimed Charlotte, in consternation.
'Possible--no indeed.'
'She will say it is not wrong, and that I know nothing of lovers.'
'You should have told her that ours are not commonplace lovers, but far beyond her small experience.'
'I wish I had! Tell her so, Charlie; she will believe you.'
'I sha'n't say one word about it.'
'Why not?'
'Because she is not worthy. If she can't appreciate them, I would let her alone. I once thought better of Eva, but it is very bad company she keeps when she is not here.'
Charles, however, was not sorry when Eveleen came to sit by him, for a bantering conversation with her was the occupation of which he was moat capable. Amy, returning, came and sat in her old place beside him, with her hand in his, and her quiet eyes fixed on the ground.
The last evening for many weeks that she would thus sit with him,--the last that she would ever be a part of his home. She had already ceased to belong entirely to him; she who had always been the most precious to him, except his mother.