She flashed a mischievous look at him, and thrilled as she caught the sudden change of expression in his face.
'Your sister has the Westmoreland strength in her--one can see that,' he said, evidently speaking with some difficulty.
'Strength! Oh, yes. Catherine has plenty of strength,' cried Rose, and then was silent a moment. 'You know, Mr. Elsmere,' she went on at last, obeying some inward impulse--'or perhaps you don't know--that at home we are all Catherine's creatures. She does exactly what she likes with us. When my father died she was sixteen, Agnes was ten, I was eight. We came here to live--we were not very rich, of course, and mamma wasn't strong. Well, she did everything: she taught us--we have scarcely had any teacher but her since then; she did most of the housekeeping; and you can see for yourself what she does for the neighbors and poor folk. She is never ill, she is never idle, she always knows her own mind. We owe everything we are, almost everything we have, to her. Her nursing has kept mamma alive through one or two illnesses. Our lawyer says he never knew any business affairs better managed than ours, and Catherine manages them. The one thing she never takes any care or thought for is herself. What we should do without her I can't imagine; and yet sometimes I think if it goes on much longer none of us three will have any character of our own left. After all, you know, it may be good for the weak people to struggle on their own feet, if the strong would only believe it, instead of always being carried. The strong people _needn't_ be always trampling on themselves--if they only knew----'
She stopped abruptly, flushing scarlet over her own daring. Her eyes were feverishly bright, and her voice vibrated under a strange mixture of feelings--sympathy, reverence, and a passionate inner admiration struggling with rebellion and protest.
They had reached the gate of the Vicarage. Elsmere stopped and looked at his companion with a singular lightening of expression. He saw perfectly that the young impetuous creature understood him, that she felt his cause was not prospering and that she wanted to help him. He saw that what she meant by this picture of their common life was, that no one need expect Catherine Leyburn to be an easy prey; that she wanted to impress on him in her eager way that such lives as her sister's were not to be gathered at a touch, without difficulty, from the branch that bears them. She was exhorting him to courage--nay he caught more than exhortation--a sort of secret message from her bright, excited looks and incoherent speech--that made his heart leap. But pride and delicacy forbade him to put his feelings into words.