Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/530

 "Did he?"

"Did he! Did you not notice it? Laura, I—I thought—I thought I saw your head leaning upon him," returned Jane, speaking as if the very utterance of the words choked her.

"You are fanciful," answered the younger sister. "You always were."

Were the words spoken in subterfuge? Jane feared so. "Oh Laura!" she exclaimed in agitation, "I have heard of young ladies allowing themselves to be on these familiar terms with men, receiving homage from them in their vanity, caresses even in their love! Surely nothing of the sort is arising between you and Mr. Carlton?"

Laura made no reply.

"Laura," continued Jane, in a sharp, ringing tone of pain, "do you like him? Oh, take care what you are about! You know you could never marry Mr. Carlton."

"I do not tell you that I like him," faltered Laura, some of her courage beginning to forsake her. "But why could I not marry him?"

"Marry him! You! The daughter of Captain Chesney marry a common country apothecary! The niece"

"There! don't go on, Jane; that's enough,"—and the young lady stamped her foot passionately.

"But I must speak. You are Miss Laura Chesney"

"I tell you, Jane, I won't listen to it. I am tired of hearing who we are and what we are. What though we have great and grand connections, do they do us any good? Does it bring plenty to our home?—does it bring us the amusement and society we have a right to expect? Jane! I am tired of it all. There are moments when I feel tempted to go and do as Clarice has done."

There was a long pause—a pause of pain; for Laura had alluded to the one painful subject of the Chesneys' later life. Jane at length broke the silence.

"It would be better for you, even that, than marrying Mr. Carlton," she said in a hushed voice. "Laura, were Mr. Carlton our equal, I could not see you marry him."

Laura turned round from the window now, turned in her surprise. "Why?"

"I do not know how it is that I have taken so great a dislike to Mr. Carlton," continued Miss Chesney in a dreamy tone, not so much answering Laura as communing with herself.

"Laura, I cannot bear Mr. Carlton; it seems to me I would rather see you in your grave than united to him, were he the first match in England."

"But I ask you why."

"I cannot explain it. For one thing—but I don't care to speak of that. You have accused me before now, Laura, of taking prejudices without apparent reason; I have taken one against Mr. Carlton."

Laura tossed her head.

"But—in speaking with reference to yourself—we have been supposing for argument's sake that he was your equal," resumed Jane.

"He is not; he never can be; therefore we may let the subject drop."

"What were you going to urge against him, the 'one thing' that you would not speak of?" returned Laura.

"It may be as well not to mention it."

"But I shall be very much obliged to you to mention it, Jane. I think you ought to do so."

"Well then—but you will think me foolish—Mr. Carlton was so mixed up, and unfavourably, with that dreadful dream I had of Clarice on Monday night. I never liked Mr. Carlton, but since that night I seem to have had a horror of him. I cannot help this, Laura; I daresay it is very foolish; but—―we cannot account for these things."

How foolish Laura Chesney thought it, the haughty contempt of her countenance fully told. She would not condescend to answer it; it was altogether beneath her notice; or she deemed it so.

Jane Chesney took her work basket and sat down near the lamp. She was looking at some work, when a violent knocking overhead of Captain Chesney's stick was heard, and Lucy came flying down the stairs and burst into the room.

"Oh Jane!" she exclaimed, "Lady Oakburn's dead."

Jane dropped her work; Laura moved to the table, aroused to excitement.

"Dead!" repeated Jane. "And when she wrote to me last week she was so well!"

"Jane, Jane, you don't understand," said the child.

"It is young Lady Oakburn; not our old aunt the dowager. And a little baby has died with her."

The thumping of the stick overhead had never ceased. Jane, recovering her scared senses, ran up-stairs, the others following her. Captain Chesney was on his couch, all turmoil and impatience, rapping incessantly; and Mr. Carlton sat near him, evidently at a loss to comprehend what caused the tumult. A shaded candle was on the table, but the blaze of the fire fell full on the surgeon's impassive face, curious and inquiring now. It appeared that he had been conversing with his patient when Lucy saw something in the Times news-