“I know not what ails mother,” said Annie, who looked very beautiful, with lilac lute-string ribbons, which I saw the Snowe girls envying; “but she has not attended to one of the prayers, nor said ‘Amen,’ all the morning.  Never fear, darling Lorna, it is nothing about you.  It is something about our John, I am sure; for she never worries herself very much about anybody but him.”  And here Annie made a look at me, such as I had had five hundred of.

“You keep your opinions to yourself,” I replied; because I knew the dear, and her little bits of jealousy; “it happens that you are quite wrong, this time.  Lorna, come with me, my darling.”

“Oh yes, Lorna; go with him,” cried Lizzie, dropping her lip, in a way which you must see to know its meaning; “John wants nobody now but you; and none can find fault with his taste, dear.”

“You little fool, I should think not,” I answered, very rudely; for, betwixt the lot of them, my Lorna’s eyelashes were quivering; “now, dearest angel, come with me; and snap your hands at the whole of them.”

My angel did come, with a sigh, and then with a smile, when we were alone; but without any unangelic attempt at snapping her sweet white fingers.

These little things are enough to show that while every one so admired Lorna, and so kindly took to her, still there would, just now and then, be petty and paltry flashes of jealousy concerning her; and perhaps it could not be otherwise among so many women.  However, we were always doubly kind to her afterwards; and although her mind was so sensitive and quick that she must have suffered, she never allowed us to perceive it, nor lowered herself by resenting it.

Possibly I may have mentioned that little Ruth Huckaback had been asked, and had even promised to spend her Christmas with us; and this was the more desirable, because she had left us through some offence, or sorrow, about things said of her.  Now my dear mother, being the kindest and best-hearted of all women, could not bear that poor dear Ruth (who would some day have such a fortune), should be entirely lost to us.  “It is our duty, my dear children,” she said more than once about it, “to forgive and forget, as freely as we hope to have it done to us.  If dear little Ruth has not behaved quite as we might have expected, great allowance should be made for a girl with so much money.  Designing people get hold of her, and flatter her, and coax her, to obtain a base influence over her; so that when she falls among simple folk, who speak the honest truth of her, no wonder the poor child is vexed, and gives herself airs, and so on.  Ruth can be very useful to us in a number of little ways; and I consider it quite a duty to pardon her freak of petulance.”