"I have seen the pictures you painted while you were away. They revealed
the story to me--as much of it as I care to know."
"There is now no secrecy in the matter. I have told my father all, and he
has asked me to go to America for two years. At the end of that time he
will accept my marriage."
"Poor Uncle John! I wonder how people can toil and deny themselves for
ungrown children! When they come to years of have-my-own-way, they
generally trample upon all their love and labor. For instance, you see a
tall, large, handsome woman in what you think picturesque poverty, you
want her, just as you used to want the fastest boat on the river, or the
fastest horse in the field. The fact that you ought not to have her, that
you cannot have her, except by trampling on all your father's dearest
hopes, does not, in the least, control you. You can conceive of nothing
better than the gratification of your own wishes. If all the men were like
you, and all the women were in my mind, there would be no more marrying in
the world, Allan Campbell!"
"Mary, if you should ever be really in love, you will then excuse me; at
present I can make no apology which you will understand or accept. Forgive
me upon credit. I am going away for a long time; and I cannot go happily
if we are at variance." He sat down by her side, and she let him take her
hand, and plead the memory of all their past affection for, and reliance
on each other. "Be my friend, my sister still, Mary; though you will not
answer me, I will trust to you. Let us part kindly now, we can gain
nothing by further discussion, at this time." He lifted her face and
kissed it; and the next moment she heard the door close behind his
footsteps, and realized that the opportunity of which she had made such
an unhappy use was gone.
There is little need to say that she was miserable. All of us have been
guilty of like perversities. We have said unkind things when our hearts
were aching with suppressed affection; we have been so eager to defend
ourselves, to stand fairly in some dear one's sight, that we have hasted
in the wrong direction, and never blundered into the right one until it
was too late. Poor Mary! She had stung herself all over. She could think
of nothing that she had said that she did not wish unsaid; and of many
things of sisterly care, and even friendly courtesy, that she had entirely
forgotten. Mortification dismissed all other feelings, and she set her
reflections to its key. "How glad he must be to have escaped a wife so
sharp-tongued and domineering! No doubt that Fife girl would have been all
submission and adoration! When a man falls in love with a girl so much
beneath him, it is a piece of shameless vanity. It is the savage in the
man. He wants her to say 'my lord' to him, and to show him reverence! I
could not do that kind of thing, no, not even if he filled the highest
pulpit in the land, and preached to the queen herself every Sunday."