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Elizabeth's Pretenders
309
had been refused. She lay upon her sofa, screwing up her short-sighted eyes first at one, and then at the other, trying to make each talk, and trying even more to divine the thoughts of each.
But in the secret watches of the night she made up her mind that the hours left to her were now too few, too precious, to remain longer silent. She would speak to her dear brother to-morrow—speak, as a mother to a son; for it was not to be endured that, when she was gone, these two should drift apart, if happiness was really within reach of both.
