Aunt wished me to give you this information before,
but papa and all the rest were anxious I should delay until we saw
whether matters took a more settled aspect, and I myself kept putting
it off from day to day, most bitterly reluctant to give up all the
pleasure I had anticipated so long. However, remembering what you
told me, namely, that you had commended the matter to a higher
decision than ours, and that you were resolved to submit with
resignation to that decision, whatever it might be, I hold it my duty
to yield also, and to be silent; it may be all for the best. I fear,
if you had been here during this severe weather, your visit would have
been of no advantage to you, for the moors are blockaded with snow,
and you would never have been able to get out. After this
disappointment, I never dare reckon with certainty on the enjoyment of
a pleasure again; it seems as if some fatality stood between you and
me. I am not good enough for you, and you must be kept from the
contamination of too intimate society. I would urge your visit yet--I
would entreat and press it--but the thought comes across me, should
Tabby die while you are in the house, I should never forgive myself.
No! it must not be, and in a thousand ways the consciousness of that
mortifies and disappoints me most keenly, and I am not the only one
who is disappointed.
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