Harry has as much right in Florence as Sophia has. He told us he
was going there. He has written to us frequently. Suppose he was with a
beautiful girl: is Julius the only young man entitled to such a
privilege? Sophia is happy in her own way, and we do not envy nor
interfere with her happiness; but why should we permit her to make us
unhappy? Throw the letter out of your memories, dear father and mother.
It is only a piece of ill-nature. Perhaps Julius had been cross with
her; and if Sophia has a grievance, she never rests until she passes it
on to some one."
Women still hold the divining-cup, and Charlotte was not far wrong in
her supposition. In spite of their twinship of soul, and in spite of
that habit of loving which was involved in their belief "that they had
been husband and wife in many a previous existence," Mr. and Mrs. Julius
Sandal disagreed as conventionally as the ordinary husband and wife of
one existence. The day on which the Florence letter was written had been
a very unhappy one for Sophia. Julius had quarrelled with her about some
very trivial affair, and had gone out in a temper disgracefully at
variance with the occasion for it; and Sophia had sat all day nursing
her wrath in her darkened room. She did not dress for the evening drive,
for she had determined to "keep up" her anger until Julius made her some
atonement.
But when he came home, she could not resist his air of confidence and
satisfaction.
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