Sickness in the house! And if Colonel Raynal was alive, still he
was absent, and in danger."
"Oh! then it was out of regard for him we were all dispirited?"
"Why, I suppose so," said Rose, stoutly; but then colored high at her
own want of candor. However, she congratulated herself that her mother's
suspicion was confined to past events.
Her self-congratulation on that score was short; for the baroness, after
eying her grimly for a second or two in silence, put her this awkward
question plump.
"If so, tell me why is it that ever since that black day when the news
of his DEATH reached us, the whole house has gone into black, and has
gone out of mourning?"
"Mamma," stammered Rose, "what DO you mean?"
"Even poor Camille, who was so pale and wan, has recovered like magic."
"O mamma! is not that fancy?" said Rose, piteously. "Of what do you
suspect me? Can you think I am unfeeling--ungrateful? I should not be
YOUR daughter."
"No, no," said the baroness, "to do you justice, you attempt sorrow;
as you put on black. But, my poor child, you do it with so little skill
that one sees a horrible gayety breaking through that thin disguise:
you are no true mourners: you are like the mutes or the undertakers at
a funeral, forced grief on the surface of your faces, and frightful
complacency below.
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