Flora reflected upon this answer without being satisfied with it.  “It doesn’t seem natural,” said she to her husband.  “She parted from that baby when he was but a few weeks old, and he has been dead nearly twenty years.  She has Eulalia to love, and a noble husband, who worships the very ground she treads on.  It don’t seem natural.  I wonder whether she has a cancer or some other secret disease.”

She redoubled her tenderness, and exerted all her powers of mimicry to amuse her sister.  The young folks screamed with laughter to see her perform the shuffling dances of the negroes, or to hear her accompany their singing with imitations of the growling contra-fagotto, or the squeaking fife.  In vain she filled the room with mocking-birds, or showed off the accomplishments of the parrot, or dressed herself in a cap with a great shaking bow, like Madame Guirlande’s, or scolded in vociferous Italian, like Signor Pimentero.  The utmost these efforts could elicit from her sister was a faint, vanishing smile.

Mr. King noticed all this, and was pained to observe that his wife’s sadness increased daily.  He would not himself have chosen young Fitzgerald as a suitor for his daughter, fearing he might resemble his father in character as he did in person; but he was willing to promote their acquaintance, because the young man seemed to be a favorite with his lady, and he thought that as a son-in-law he might supply the loss of her first-born.  But, in their rides and other excursions, he was surprised to observe that Mrs. King assiduously tried to withdraw Mr. Fitzgerald from her daughter, and attach him to herself.  Her attentions generally proved too flattering to be resisted; but if the young man, yielding to attractions more suited to his age, soon returned to Eulalia, there was an unmistakable expression of pain on her mother’s face.  Mr. King was puzzled and pained by this conduct.  Entire confidence had hitherto existed between them.  Why had she become so reserved?  Was the fire of first-love still smouldering in her soul, and did a delicate consideration for him lead her to conceal it?  He could not believe it, she had so often repeated that to love the unworthy was a thing impossible for her.  Sometimes another thought crossed his mind and gave him exquisite torture, though he repelled it instantly:  “Could it possibly be that his modest and dignified wife was in love with this stripling, who was of an age suitable for her daughter?” Whatever this mysterious cloud might be that cast its cold shadow across the sunshine of his home, he felt that he could not endure its presence.  He resolved to seek an explanation with his wife, and to propose an immediate return to Europe, if either of his conjectures should prove true.  Returning from a solitary walk, during which these ideas had been revolving in his mind, he found her in their chamber kneeling by the bedside, sobbing violently.  With the utmost tenderness he inquired what had grieved her.