Lady Broadhurst was speaking again, in a low, musical voice, holding out her hands to the blazing fire. Philip noticed that these hands were long and thin, like Peggy's and unlike the hands of the women whom he sometimes encountered sitting in omnibuses or serving in shops. Her feet were tiny, too. In the glow of the fire her eyelashes looked long and wet.
"I was very much touched," she was saying, "by your letter. Your wanting a little girl for a sister came very near home to me; for I have just lost a little girl of my own. She was all I had, Tommy. She was taken from me three months ago.... I suppose we should take our losses as they come, without wincing or questioning the wisdom of God. But I was weak--and selfish. For a long time I refused to bow to his will. I cried out, and would not be comforted...."
The Beautiful Lady's eyes were really glistening now. Presently a tear splashed on to the long white hand. Philip felt strangely uncomfortable. He had been warned by his uncle more than once to beware, above all, of a woman's tears. "Her tears are the biggest gun in her battery," Uncle Joseph had said. But Philip forgot to feel suspicious. He was only intensely sorry for the lady.
Presently she began to speak again, not altogether to Philip.
"But I came to myself," she said. "I suddenly learned that all things work together for good--that there is no sorrow which does not bring its own consolation with it. One day I saw myself as I was--a querulous, self-centered, self-conscious, self-made martyr. I had forgotten that other people had their troubles too--troubles which I might do something to smooth away." She looked up. "Do you know who taught me that lesson, Tommy?"
"Yes--you! It was your letter. When I read it I learned, all of a sudden, where the cure for sorrow lies. It lies in trying to help others. So I have come to see you and your parents, in the hope that I may be allowed to be of some small service to you all. I cannot give you a little sister to play with--"
The lady's voice broke suddenly, and Philip tactfully arose and put coal upon the fire.
"--but I may be able to help you in other ways. I am fairly well off, and I ask to be permitted to see that your father gets back to health and strength again. Do you think he would consent? He might like to go abroad for a little."