"But he can't hear it, auntie dear," says Lottie, consolingly. "He's dead, you know."
"Not dead, but gone before," reproves Miss Darcy, burying her face in her handkerchief.
"Water-works again!" groans Robert, _sotto voce_. "Use the plug, some one."
Addie obeys the elegant order by slipping her arm round the old lady's neck.
"There, there, dear; don't take on so. You fret too much about us; you'll make yourself ill in the end. Cheer up, auntie dear, cheer--"
"Cheer up!" she interrupts, in a wailing voice. "Oh, child, it is easy for you to talk in that light way! Cheer up, when poverty is at the door, starvation staring us in the face! Cheer up, when I look at you five neglected, deserted children, growing up half fed, wholly uneducated, clothed as badly as the poorest laborer on the vast estates your grandfather owned--you my poor dead sister's children! Oh, Addie, Addie, you talk and feel like a child--a child of the summer, who has not the sense, the power to feel the chill breath of coming winter! How can you know? How can you understand? You heard your brothers and your sisters here grumbling and railing at me not five minutes ago because I had not legs of mutton and ribs of beef to feed you with, grumbling because this is the fourth time in one week you have had to dine off rabbit. Well"--with a sudden burst of anguish--"do you know, if Steve Higgins, devoted retainer that he is, had not the kindness, the forethought to supply us, as he has been doing for the last month, with the surplus of his warren, you'd have had to dine off bread and vegetables altogether? For not a scrap of solid food will they supply us with in Nutsford until my wretched dividends are due, and that is four months off yet. Oh, Addie dear, don't try to talk to me; I can bear up no longer! Sorrows have come to me too late in life. I--I can bear up no longer!"
Her voice dies away in hysterical sobs. By this time the family are grouped round the afflicted lady; even Robert's hard young arm encircles her heaving shoulder. He joins as vehemently as any in the sympathizing chorus.
"There, there; don't, auntie dear. Heaven will help us, you'll see!"
"Every cloud has a silver lining, every thorn-bush a blossom."