She might have reflected that Catherine would supply him with all the information he needed on this point; but we know that Mrs. Penniman’s reflections were rarely just; and, moreover, she felt that it was not for her to depend on what Catherine might do. She was to do her duty, quite irrespective of Catherine. I have said that her young friend took his ease with her, and it is an illustration of the fact that he made no answer to her letter. He took note of it amply; but he lighted his cigar with it, and he waited, in tranquil confidence that he should receive another. “His state of mind really freezes my blood,” Mrs. Penniman had written, alluding to her brother; and it would have seemed that upon this statement she could hardly improve. Nevertheless, she wrote again, expressing herself with the aid of a different figure. “His hatred of you burns with a lurid flame—the flame that never dies,” she wrote. “But it doesn’t light up the darkness of your future. If my affection could do so, all the years of your life would be an eternal sunshine.
