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"Is it not a pity, Lionel?" "I wish you had," replied Lionel. "Can you give them nothing of what you have brought?" "Well I must consider," hesitated Sibylla, who was essentially selfish. "The things are so beautiful, so expensive; they are scarcely suited to Deborah and Amilly." "Why not?" questioned Jan. "You have not a bit of sense, Jan," grumbled Sibylla.
He would not reproach his mother by so much as a word, but the course she was taking, in thus proclaiming his affairs to the world, hurt him in no measured degree. "I don't like her," said Jan. "Deborah and Amilly are not much, but I'd rather have the two, than Sibylla." "Jan," said Lionel, suppressing his temper, "your opinion was not asked."
The doctor thinks he shall not be returning to Deerham, and so I am going to take to the whole of the practice," continued Jan, who possessed too much innate good feeling to hint to Miss Deb of any other cause. "Yes. But it will place me and Amilly in a very embarrassing position, Mr. Jan," added the poor lady, her thin cheeks flushing painfully.
"I didn't know but Lionel might have brought me some anatomical studies over. They'd be in my line." Sibylla shrieked a pretty little shriek of affectation. "Lionel, why do you let him say such things to me? He means amputated arms and legs." "I'm sure I didn't," said Jan. "I meant models. They'd not let the other things pass the customs. Have you brought a dress a-piece for Deb and Amilly?"
There was nothing surprising in Sibylla's marrying her cousin Fred, for many had shrewdly suspected that the favour between them was not altogether cousinly favour; but the surprise was given to the hasty marriage. Dr. West vouchsafed an explanation. Two of his daughters, aged respectively one year and two years younger than Amilly, had each died of consumption, as all Deerham knew.
Sibylla also knew, and she read arightly the drooping of their faces. "Never mind, Deborah; cheer up, Amilly. It is only for a time. Ere very long I shall be leaving you again." "Surely not for Australia!" returned Deborah, the hint startling her. "Australia? Well, I am not sure that it will be quite so far," answered Sibylla, in a little spirit of mischief.
"It is so," she replied, breaking into sobs. "Spasms at the heart, they say. Jan and Dr. Hayes were there, but they could not save him." Deborah and Amilly West were sitting over the fire In the growing dusk of a February evening.
"Master Cheese thought you would keep it up until morning." "Oh! did he? Is he gone to bed?" "He is in the surgery," replied Miss Amilly. "Mr. Jan, you have told us nothing yet about the wedding in the morning." "It went off," answered Jan. "But the details? How did the ladies look?" "They looked as usual, for all I saw," replied Jan. "What did they wear?" "Wear? Gowns, I suppose." "Oh, Mr. Jan!
So many years younger than they, they had petted her and indulged her as a child, until at length the child became their mistress. Sibylla was rude and ungrateful, would cast scornful words at them and call them "old maids," with other reproachful terms. There was open warfare between them; but in their hearts they loved Sibylla still. They had been named respectively Deborah and Amilly.
The prospect before her looked, to her mind, as hopelessly forlorn as she looked. But it was necessary that she should gaze at the future steadily; should not turn aside from it in carelessness or in apathy; should face it, and make the best of it. If Jan Verner and her father were about to dissolve partnership, and the practice henceforth was to be Jan's, what was to become of her and Amilly?
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