For the first time in
our lives we had changed places--the resolution was all on her
side, the hesitation all on mine. I looked into the pale, quiet,
resigned young face--I saw the pure, innocent heart, in the loving
eyes that looked back at me--and the poor worldly cautions and
objections that rose to my lips dwindled and died away in their
own emptiness. I hung my head in silence. In her place the
despicably small pride which makes so many women deceitful would
have been my pride, and would have made me deceitful too.
"Don't be angry with me, Marian," she said, mistaking my silence.
I only answered by drawing her close to me again. I was afraid of
crying if I spoke. My tears do not flow so easily as they ought--
they come almost like men's tears, with sobs that seem to tear me
in pieces, and that frighten every one about me.
"I have thought of this, love, for many days," she went on,
twining and twisting my hair with that childish restlessness in
her fingers, which poor Mrs. Vesey still tries so patiently and so
vainly to cure her of--"I have thought of it very seriously, and I
can be sure of my courage when my own conscience tells me I am
right. Let me speak to him to-morrow--in your presence, Marian.
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