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Updated: June 21, 2025
Her attempts, however, to make Leam regard mamma in heaven as in any wise different from mamma on earth were utterly abortive. Leam's imagination could not compass the thaumaturgy tried to be inculcated. Mamma, if mamma at all, was mamma as she had known her; and if as she had known her, then she was unhappy and desolate, seeing what a wicked thing this was that papa had done.
All the same, Leam's fidelity, if touching, was embarrassing as things were; so was her belief in the continued existence of her mother. But what can be done with those uncompromising reasoners who will carry their creeds straight to their ultimates, and will not be put off with eclectic compromises of this part known and that hidden so much sure and so much vague? Mrs.
"And she died?" continued Fina, yawning in a childishly indifferent manner. "Yes, she died." "Why? Who killed her? Did papa?" asked Fina. Leam's face was very white: "No, not papa." "Did God?" "I cannot tell you, Fina," said Leam, to whom falsehoods were abhorrent and the truth impossible. "Did you?" persisted Fina with childish obstinacy.
It threw a flush on their faded elderliness which was not amiss, and did the best for them that could be done in the circumstances; it brought out into lovely contrast, the contrast of harmonies, Adelaide Birkett's delicate complexion, fair flaxen braids and light-blue eyes; it burnt like flame in Leam's dark hair, and made her large transcendent eyes glow as if with fire; while the little one looked like a rose, the white and crimson petals of which enclosed a laughing golden-headed fairy.
I know what you must feel, but it is better for you to have a good kind stepmother, who will be your friend and instructress, than to be left with no one to guide you." Leam's sad face lifted itself up to the speaker. "It cannot be good for me if it is against mamma," she said. "But, Leam, dear child, be reasonable. Your mamma, poor dear! is dead, and, let us trust, in heaven."
There was not an ornament in the place but was dedicated to her, placed where she could see it on such and such an occasion, and shifted twenty times a day for a more advantageous position. Everything which the house had of most beautiful was pressed into her service, and even Leam's natural rights of inheritance were ignored for madame's better endowing.
And as Leam was young, and as even the hardest youth is unconsciously plastic because unconsciously imitative, the suave instructress did really make some impression; so that when she assured the incredulous neighborhood of Leam's improvement she had more solid data than always underlaid her words, and was partly justified in her assertion.
Also, he thought that if his vague tentative advertisements in the papers, which he dared not make too evident, had as yet brought nothing, some more satisfactory way of discovering Leam's hiding-place might shape itself when he was alone, freer to act as he thought best.
"But you did say it was a noise," persisted Fina, climbing on to his knees and putting her arms round his neck. "And I think it a noise too." "Poor Leam's music cannot be very first-rate," remarked Maria, who was a proficient and played almost as well as a "professional." "Four years ago she did not know her notes, and four years' practice cannot be expected to make a perfect pianiste."
"Her friend, yes, but not her lover, as I am yours not her future husband," said Edgar. Leam's hand touched his softly, with a touch that was as fleeting and subtle as her smile. "A friend is not a wife, you know," he continued. "And you are to be my wife, my own dear and beloved little wife always with me, never parted again." "Never parted again! Ah, I shall never be unhappy then," she murmured.
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