'I dare say I shall in some degree: it was not without sorrow I parted with her sister.'
'I can imagine that.'
'Well, Miss Matilda is quite as good--better in one respect.'
'What is that?'
'She's honest.'
'And the other is not?'
'I should not call her DIShonest; but it must be confessed she's a little artful.'
'ARTFUL is she?--I saw she was giddy and vain--and now,' he added, after a pause, 'I can well believe she was artful too; but so excessively so as to assume an aspect of extreme simplicity and unguarded openness. Yes,' continued he, musingly, 'that accounts for some little things that puzzled me a trifle before.'
After that, he turned the conversation to more general subjects. He did not leave me till we had nearly reached the park-gates: he had certainly stepped a little out of his way to accompany me so far, for he now went back and disappeared down Moss Lane, the entrance of which we had passed some time before. Assuredly I did not regret this circumstance: if sorrow had any place in my heart, it was that he was gone at last--that he was no longer walking by my side, and that that short interval of delightful intercourse was at an end. He had not breathed a word of love, or dropped one hint of tenderness or affection, and yet I had been supremely happy. To be near him, to hear him talk as he did talk, and to feel that he thought me worthy to be so spoken to--capable of understanding and duly appreciating such discourse--was enough.
'Yes, Edward Weston, I could indeed be happy in a house full of enemies, if I had but one friend, who truly, deeply, and faithfully loved me; and if that friend were you--though we might be far apart--seldom to hear from each other, still more seldom to meet-- though toil, and trouble, and vexation might surround me, still--it would be too much happiness for me to dream of! Yet who can tell,' said I within myself, as I proceeded up the park,--'who can tell what this one month may bring forth? I have lived nearly three- and-twenty years, and I have suffered much, and tasted little pleasure yet; is it likely my life all through will be so clouded? Is it not possible that God may hear my prayers, disperse these gloomy shadows, and grant me some beams of heaven's sunshine yet? Will He entirely deny to me those blessings which are so freely given to others, who neither ask them nor acknowledge them when received? May I not still hope and trust? I did hope and trust for a while: but, alas, alas! the time ebbed away: one week followed another, and, excepting one distant glimpse and two transient meetings--during which scarcely anything was said--while I was walking with Miss Matilda, I saw nothing of him: except, of course, at church.