“I can’t help being egotistical,” I replied, “when I see no one, and am shut up in the ‘little world of me,’ as closely as mouse in trap. And with myself for a subject, what can my letters be but melancholy?”
“Anybody can write amusing letters, if they choose,” said Kate, reckless both of fact and grammar.
“Unless I make fun of you, what else have I to laugh at?”
“Well, do! Make fun of me to your heart’s content! Who cares?”
“You promise to laugh with us, and not be offended?”
“I promise not to be offended. My laughing depends upon your wit.” “There is no mirth left in me, Kate. I am convinced that I ought to say with Jacques, ‘’Tis good to be sad, and say nothing.’”
“Then I shall answer as Rosalind did,—‘Why, then, ’tis good to be a post!’ No, no, Charlie, do be merry. Or if you cannot, just now, at least encourage ‘a most humorous sadness,’ and that will be the first step to real mirth.”
“I shall never be merry again, Lina, till you let me recall Mr.——. That care weighs me down, and I truly believe retards my recovery.”
“Hush, Charlie!” she said, imperiously.
“Now, dear Kate, do not be obstinate. My position is too cruel. With the alleviation of knowing your happiness secure, I could bear my lot. But now it is intolerable, utterly!”
She was silent.
“You must give me that consolation.”
“To say I would ever leave you, Charlie, while you are so helpless, would be to tell a lie, for I could not do it. ——is a civil engineer. He is always travelling about. I should have no settled home to take you to. How can you suppose I would abandon you? Do you think I could find any happiness after doing it? Let us be silent about this.”
“I will not, Kate. I am sure, that, besides being a selfish, it would be a foolish thing to submit to you in this matter. I shall linger, perhaps, until your youth is gone, and then have the pang, far worse than any other I could suffer, of leaving you quite alone in the world. Do listen to reason!” She sat thinking. At last she said, “Well, wait one year.”
“That would be nonsensical procrastination. Does not the doctor declare that a year will not better my condition?”
“But he cannot be sure. And I promise you, Charlie, that, if Mr. - asks me then, I will think about it,—and if you are better, go with him. More I will not promise.”
“A year from last February, you mean? A pause.
“Encroacher! Yes, then.”
“And you will write to him to say so?”
“Indeed! That would be pretty behavior!”
“But as you rejected him decidedly, he may form new——She clapped her hand upon my mouth.
“Dare to say it!” she cried.
I removed her hand, and said, eagerly, “Now, Kate, do not trifle. I must have some certainty that I am not wrecking your happiness. I cannot wait a year in suspense. I am a man. I have not the patience of your incomprehensible sex.”
“I have more than patience to support me, Charlie,” she whispered. “He insisted upon refusing to take a positive answer then, and said he should return again next spring, to see if I were in the same mind. So be at ease!” I sighed, unsatisfied.
“I am sure he will come,” she said, turning quite away, that I might not dwell upon her warm blush.
“There is Ben with the horse. Are you ready?” she asked, glad to change the subject.
I was always ready for that. I had enjoyed the “jaunting-car-r-r” so much, that my sister, resolved to gratify me further, had made comfortable arrangements for longer excursions. I found that I could sit up, if well supported by pillows; and so Kate had her “cabriolet” brought out and repaired.
