“There was, I think, an elder sister to those you have named.”
Malcolm coughed, and grew red in the face.
“You have not mentioned Miss Helen Grahame--what of her?”
Malcolm appeared unpleasantly disconcerted; presently he said--
Lotte started back astounded, and echoed the word in such an incredulous tone that Mr. Malcolm added--
“That is, to us. Excuse me, but you are touching on a tender point--a family matter.”
But Malcolm and Lotte started as he concluded; for, at this instant, a sharp cry of acute pain rang in their ears; it was followed by a low wailing sob, and then all was silent again. Lotte pressed her hand upon her heart, for that burst of agony from the inner room made it ache. She knew whence the sound proceeded, and from whom.
Malcolm was sufficiently well-bred not to make any remark respecting the sound he had heard, but he thought it strange, and wondered much what it meant. Lotte recalled his straying thoughts by asking if his sister Evangeline spoke thus of her sister Helen?
“No,” he returned; “but she is nobody. She is so unlike all the family. Mamma told her that she must consider Helen as dead, and that is why she frets and whines about the place so much. However, the topic is disagreeable; pray let us say no more about it.”
“I have ended, sir,” returned Lotte, quietly, but dreading what was to come.
“Well, then,” he said, “look here. You are very pretty. I never saw a face I like so much as yours. I am anxious that you should understand that, because it is my wish to have the opportunity of gazing upon it as often as possible. Now you are perpetually drawing that infernal needle backwards and forwards, from morning until night, making your pretty face pale and ‘eyelids weary and worn,’ and all that sort of thing. Now my notion is----”
“Yes,” interrupted Malcolm, eagerly, in his turn, “to take you away from this place, throw the needle to the devil, place you in a pretty country house, own servants, brougham----”
“And convert me from a humble, virtuous needlewoman into a shameless and an abandoned outcast,” cried Lotte, firmly, and in clear tones.
“Mr. Grahame, I have not spoken to you previous to this hour; but if I had proposed as soon as we met, that you should become a thief, a degraded and criminal rogue, you would consider that I had inflicted an insulting outrage upon your honour, and you would ask me indignantly, what there was in your conduct and your appearance that called forth so great and undeserved an affront.”