I didn't know I
was coming till just an hour before I started. Mother insisted on my
going to see the last of you. Cousin Mary had invited me to ----, so I
shall see you off, Davy dear, after all. I thought I'd just pop in and
let you know I was in the neighborhood. Mary and her husband are
outside the gate in their four-wheel. I would not let them drive in,
because I want to hear your story, and they would have bothered us."
"Eve, dear, I have no good news for you. Your words have come true. I
have been perplexed, up and down, hot and cold, till I feel sometimes
like going mad. Eve, I cannot fathom her. She is deeper than the
ocean, and more changeable. What am I saying? the sea and the wind;
they are to be read; they have their signs and their warnings; but
she--"
"There! there! that is the old song. I tell you it is only a girl--a
creature as shallow as a puddle, and as easy to fathom, as you call
it, only men are so stupid, especially boys. Now just you tell me all
she has said, all she has done, and all she has looked, and I will
turn her inside out like a glove in a minute."
Cheered by this audacious pledge, David pumped upon Eve all that has
trickled on my readers, and some minor details besides, and repeated
Lucy's every word, sweet or bitter, and recalled her lightest
action--_Meminerunt omnia amantes_--and every now and then he
looked sadly into Eve's keen little face for his doom.
She heard him in silence until the last fatal incident, Lucy's
severity on the lawn.
Pages:
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340