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Updated: June 20, 2025
It was the bitterest moment of Catherine Leyburn's life. In it the heroic dream of years broke down. Nay, the shrivelling ironic touch of circumstance laid upon it made it look even in her own eyes almost ridiculous. What had she been living for, praying for, all these years? She threw herself down by the widow's side, her face working with a passion that terrified Mrs. Leyburn.
Thornburgh, left alone, absorbed herself to all appearance in the school treat which was to come off in a fortnight, in a new set of covers for the drawing-room, and in Sarah's love affairs, which were always passing through some tragic phase or other, and into which Mrs. Thornburgh was allowed a more unencumbered view than she was into Catherine Leyburn's.
Leyburn in this fashion. All she knew was that she had sallied forth determined somehow to upset the situation, just as one gives a shake purposely to a bundle of spillikins on the chance of more favorable openings. Mrs. Leyburn's mind was just now playing the part of spillikins, and the vicar's wife was shaking it viciously, though with occasional qualms as to the lawfulness of the process.
Leyburn's thin mittened hand awhile tenderly in her own; Robert and Agnes set up a lively gossip on the subject of the Thornburghs' guests, in which Rose joined, while Catherine looked smiling on. She seemed apart from the rest, Robert thought; not, clearly, by her own will, but by virtue of a difference of temperament which could not but make itself felt.
Catherine, however, talked away, gently stroking the while the girl's rough hand which lay on her knee, to the mingled pain and bliss of its owner, who was outraged by the contrast between her own ungainly member and Miss Leyburn's delicate fingers. Mrs. Seaton was on the sofa beside Mrs. Thornburgh, amply avenging herself on the vicar's wife for any checks she might have received at tea.
'Stuff and nonsense! replied the lady with her usual emphasis; 'I never flatter you, Hugh, and I don't mean to begin now, but it would be mere folly not to recognize that you have advantages which must tell on the mind of any girl in Miss Leyburn's position.
They fêted her in their own house; they took her to the houses of other people; society smiled on Miss Leyburn's protectors more than it had ever smiled on Mr. and Mrs.
Like all theorists, especially those at secondhand, Mrs. Leyburn's maxims had been very much routed by the event. The babe had ailments she did not understand, or it developed likes and dislikes she had forgotten existed in babies, and Mrs. Leyburn was nonplussed. She would sit with it on her lap, anxiously studying its peculiarities.
Leyburn's mind. Much good might it do! But, after all, she had the poorest opinion of the widow's capacities as an ally. She and her companion said a few more excited, affectionate, and apologetic things to one another, and then she departed. Both mother and knitting were found by Agnes half an hour later in a state of considerable confusion. But Mrs.
And he, indeed, did his polite best to be serious. But it somewhat disconcerted him in the middle to find Miss Leyburn's eyes upon him. And undeniably there was spark of laughter in them, quenched, as soon as his glance crossed hers, under long lashes. How that spark had lit up the grave, pale face! He longed to provoke it again, to cross over to her and say, 'What amused you?
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