For all this, the mother and wife, when the black letter found them in the morning at breakfast, had burst into a fit of grief, and faltered that she wept for a father.  Mrs. Andrew, to whom the letter was addressed, had simply held the letter to her in a trembling hand.  The Major compared their behaviour, with marked encomiums of Mrs. Andrew.  Now this lady and her husband were in obverse relative positions.  The brewer had no will but his Harriet’s.  His esteem for her combined the constitutional feelings of an insignificantly-built little man for a majestic woman, and those of a worthy soul for the wife of his bosom.  Possessing, or possessed by her, the good brewer was perfectly happy.  She, it might be thought, under these circumstances, would not have minded much his hearing what he might hear.  It happened, however, that she was as jealous of the winds of Lymport as the Major himself; as vigilant in debarring them from access to the brewery as now the Countess could have been.  We are not dissecting human nature suffice it, therefore, from a mere glance at the surface, to say, that just as moneyed men are careful of their coin, women who have all the advantages in a conjunction, are miserly in keeping them, and shudder to think that one thing remains hidden, which the world they move in might put down pityingly in favour of their spouse, even though to the little man ’twere naught.  She assumed that a revelation would diminish her moral stature; and certainly it would not increase that of her husband.  So no good could come of it.  Besides, Andrew knew, his whole conduct was a tacit admission, that she had condescended in giving him her hand.  The features of their union might not be changed altogether by a revelation, but it would be a shock to her.

Consequently, Harriet tenderly rebuked Caroline, for her outcry at the breakfast-table; and Caroline, the elder sister, who had not since marriage grown in so free an air, excused herself humbly, and the two were weeping when the Countess joined them and related what she had just undergone.

Hearing of Caroline’s misdemeanour, however, Louisa’s eyes rolled aloft in a paroxysm of tribulation.  It was nothing to Caroline; it was comparatively nothing to Harriet; but the Count knew not Louisa had a father:  believed that her parents had long ago been wiped out.  And the Count was by nature inquisitive:  and if he once cherished a suspicion he was restless; he was pointed in his inquiries:  he was pertinacious in following out a clue:  there never would be peace with him!  And then, as they were secure in their privacy, Louisa cried aloud for her father, her beloved father!  Harriet wept silently.  Caroline alone expressed regret that she had not set eyes on him from the day she became a wife.

‘How could we, dear?’ the Countess pathetically asked, under drowning lids.

‘Papa did not wish it,’ sobbed Mrs. Andrew.

‘I never shall forgive myself!’ said the wife of the Major, drying her cheeks.  Perhaps it was not herself whom she felt she never could forgive.