Bah! They are nearly all married or
engaged; their lives have drifted completely away from mine, as it was
natural and inevitable that they should. We are good friends still,
but what does it amount to? I rarely think of them; they never of
me, I imagine. We exert no influence on each other's lives, and add
nothing to them. I never had a sister, but I had learned to love you
as if you were one, and when I heard that you were to be of our family
again, the resumption of our old relations was one of my dearest
expectations. It hurt me cruelly, Madge, when you laughed at the
idea as preposterous, and told me that I had forgotten myself when
following the most natural impulse of my heart. It seemed to me the
result of prudishness, rather than womanly delicacy, unless you have
changed in heart as greatly as in externals. You could be so much
to me as a sister. It is a relationship that I have always craved--a
sister not far removed from me in age; and such a tie, it appears to
me, might form the basis of a sympathy and confidence that would be
as frank as unselfish and helpful. That is what I looked forward to in
you, Madge. Why on earth can it not be?"
She was painfully embarrassed, and was glad that his words were spoken
under the cover of night.
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