He looked one moment doubtfully at Olive, who sat in her little chair at the farther end of the room, quiet, silent, and demure. She had beside her some purple plums, which she did not attempt to eat, but was playing with them, arranging them with green leaves in a thousand graceful ways, and smiling to herself when the afternoon sunlight, creeping through the dim window, rested upon them and made their rich colour richer still.
“Shall we send Olive away?” said the mother.
“No, let her stay--she is of no importance.”
The parents both looked at the child's pale, spiritual face, felt the reproach it gave, and sighed. Perhaps both father and mother would have loved her, but for a sense of shame in the latter, and the painful memory of deceit in the former.
“Sybilla,” suddenly resumed Captain Rothesay, “what I have to say is merely, how soon you can arrange to leave Stirling?”
“Indeed! and you never told me anything about it,” said Sybilla, with a vexed look.
“Now, my little wife, do not be foolish; you never wish to hear about business, and I have taken you at your word; you cannot object to that?”
But she could, and she had a thousand half-pouting, half-jesting complaints to urge. She put them forth rather incoherently; in fact, she talked for five minutes without giving her husband opportunity for a single word. Yet she loved him dearly, and had in her heart no objection to being saved the trouble of thinking beforehand; only she thought it right to stand up a little for her conjugal prerogative.
He listened in perfect silence. When she had done, he merely said, “Very well, Sybilla; and we will leave Stirling this day month. I have decided to live in England. Oldchurch is a very convenient town, and I have no doubt you will find Merivale Hall an agreeable residence.”
“Merivale Hall. Are we really going to live in a Hall?” cried Sybilla, clapping her hands with childish glee. But immediately her face changed. “You must be jesting with me, Angus. I don't know much about money, but I know we are not rich enough to keep up a Hall.”
“We _were_ not, but we are now, I am happy to say,” answered Captain Rothesay, with some triumph.
“Rich! very rich! and you never told me?” Sybilla's hands fell on her knee, and it was doubtful which expression was dominant in her countenance--womanly pain, or womanly indignation.