Read Online The Last and the First by Ivy Compton-Burnett - Free Book Online

the young. Perhaps it should not look too like itself. It may be better disguised.”
    â€œIt is better still in the open,” said Hermia. “If a thing is good it should stand the light. It should seek it and appear as itself, as what it is.”
    â€œAs you do,” said Hamilton, in a low tone. “You appear as yourself, as what you are. An exile from your own world and an alien in this. You have the strength to stand alone. It could not be said of many.”
    â€œIt can scarcely be said of me. It needs more strength than I know. I am more alone than I thought to be. I tried and failed to live with nothing, and it is again before me. I hardly dare to look forward.”
    â€œA house divided against itself,” said Hamilton, still speaking to her. “It cannot stand.”
    â€œIt is true. The slow death will go on. I am losing hope.”
    â€œI do not lose it for you. You are young, or young to me. There will be another future.”
    â€œThere are not so many. For me there was the one. I strove for it and gained it, and it is gone.”
    Hermia moved away, unwilling to go further with Hamilton, and the voices round them went on.
    â€œDoes your grandmother spoil you, Amy? People are supposed to spoil their grand-children.”
    â€œOh, I daresay she does in a sense,” said Amy, in a light tone.
    â€œIn what way does she spoil you?”
    â€œOh, everyone does that in a different way,” said Amy, aware that Jocasta’s method must appear as her own.
    â€œYou didn’t have a dress for the school play. And it meant you couldn’t take part in it.”
    â€œOh, yes, there was a touch of spoiling there. That was an escape indeed.”
    â€œAnd you didn’t subscribe very much to Miss Murdoch’s Christmas present.”
    â€œOh, I don’t suppose Grannie wants to spoil Miss Murdoch,” said Amy, with a little laugh. “I think she rather despises her for keeping a school.”
    â€œWouldn’t you really rather be more like everyone else?”
    â€œOh, there are plenty of people to be that. There is no harm in a few exceptions.”
    â€œI am glad I am not an exception,” said a reflective child, judging the role to be beyond her.
    â€œWhy do you not come to see Amy sometimes?” said Jocasta to the girls. “I should like to see her friends about the house. She must not let shyness prevent her asking you. You could sit in the garden and have tea in the schoolroom afterwards. There can be nothing against it.”
    Amy summoned a smile to her lips at the mention of this prospect, and stood with it hovering over them.
    â€œIf I am apprised of the date of the visit I will endeavour to be present,” said Hamilton, “and to efface the indefinite impression I have perforce produced to-day.”
    The girls responded to his smile, and startled his niece who was not prepared for a normal acceptance of him.
    â€œWe should like to come and see you, Amy,” said one. “It would be a change.”
    â€œWould it? I don’t know what it would be,” said Amy, in an absent tone. “It sounds as if it would be nothing. I shouldn’t have anything to do with it. It would be done for me.”
    â€œYou don’t seem to do much for yourself. Do you choose your own clothes?”
    â€œOh, I don’t care about clothes. I never think about them. I wonder people ever do. I hardly know what they are.”
    The girls held their eyes from the examples before them in case they might hardly suggest this unawareness.
    â€œYour grandmother’s clothes are good. She must know what they are.”
    â€œOh, no doubt she does. For Grannie nothing but the best.”
    â€œDoes she think much more of herself than of anyone else?”
    â€œOh, well, everyone does.”
    â€œI don’t think parents always do.”
    â€œThis is a grand-parent,” said Amy, her tone still light, but holding a