“O Sophia! oh, my child, my child!  How can you treat me so?  What have I done?” She was murmuring such words to herself when the door was opened, and Sophia entered.  It was characteristic of the woman that she did not knock ere entering.  She had always jealously guarded her rights to the solitude of her own room; and, even when she was a school-girl, it had been an understood household regulation that no one was to enter it without knocking.  But now that she was mistress of all the rooms in Seat-Sandal, she ignored the simple courtesy towards others.  Consequently, when she entered, she saw the tears in her mother’s eyes.  They only angered her.  “Why should the sorrows of others darken her happy home?” Sophia was one of those women whom long regrets fatigue.  As for her father, she reflected, “that he had been well nursed, decorously buried, and that every propriety had been attended to.  It was, in her opinion, high time that the living—­Julius and herself—­should be thought of.”  The stated events of life—­its regular meals, its trivial pleasures—­had quite filled any void in her existence made by her father’s death.  If he had come back to earth, if some one had said to her, “He is here,” she would have been far more embarrassed than delighted.  The worldly advantages built upon the extinction of a great love!  Sophia could contemplate them without a blush.

She came forward, shivering slightly, and stirred the fire.  “How cold and dreary you are!  Mother, why don’t you cheer up and do something?  It would be better for you than moping on the sofa.”

“Suppose Julius had died six weeks ago, would you think of ’cheering up,’ Sophia?”

“Charlotte, what a shameful thing to say!”

“Precisely what you have just said to mother.”

“Supposing Julius dead!  I never heard such a cruel thing.  I dare say it would delight you.”

“No, it would not; for Julius is not fit to die.”

“Mother, I will not be insulted in my own house in such a way.  Speak to Charlotte, or I must tell Julius.”

“What have you come to say, Sophia?”

“I came to talk pleasantly, to see you, and”—­

“You saw me an hour or two since, and were very rude and unkind.  But if you regret it, my dear, it is forgiven.”

“I do not know what there is to forgive.  But really, Charlotte and you seem so completely unhappy and dissatisfied here, that I should think you would make a change.”

“Do you mean that you wish me to go?”

“If you put words into my mouth.”

“It is not worth while affecting either regret or offence, Sophia.  How soon do you wish us to leave?”

The dowager mistress of Sandal-Side had stood up as she asked the question.  She was quite calm, and her manner even cold and indifferent.  “If you wish us to go to-day, it is still possible.  I can walk as far as the rectory.  For your father’s sake, the rector will make us welcome.—­Charlotte, my bonnet and cloak!”