For a moment I look down irresolute, then, through
some fixed belief in him, I look up and tell him the
plain, bare truth.
“I did think that it would be a nice
thing for the boys,” I say, “and so it
will, there is no doubt; you will be as good as a fa—,
as a brother to them; but—I like you myself
besides, you may believe it or not as you please,
but it is quite, quite, QUITE true.”
As I speak, the tears steal into my eyes.
“And I like you!” he answers
very simply, and so saying, stoops, and with a sort
of diffidence, kisses me.
“Well, how did it go off?” cries Bobby,
curiously, when I next rejoin my compeers. “Did
you laugh?”
“Laugh!” I echo, with lofty anger,
“I do not know what you mean! I never felt
in the least inclined.” Then seeing my brethren
look rather aghast at this sudden change in the wind,
I add gayly: “Bobby, you must never again
breathe a word about Sir Roger’s having been
at school with father; let it be supposed that he
did without education.”
This is my wooing: thus I am disposed of.
Without a shadow of previous flirtation with any man
born of woman—without any of the ups and
downs, the ins and outs of an ordinary love-affair,
I place my fate in Sir Roger’s hands. Henceforth
I must have done with all girlish speculations, as
to the manner of man who is to drop from the clouds
to be my wooer. Well, I have not many daydreams
to relinquish. When I have built Spanish castles—in
a large family, one has not time for many—a
lover for myself has been less the theme of my aspirations
than a benefactor for the family. One, who will
exercise a wholesomely repressive influence over father,
has been more than any thing the theme of my longings;
on the unlikely hypothesis of my marrying at all.
For, O friends, it has seemed to me most unlikely;
I dare say that I might not have been over-difficult—might
have thankfully and heartily loved some one not quite
a Bayard, but one cannot love any thing—any
odd and end—and, say what you will, the
choice of a country girl, with a little dowry and
a plain face, is but small. For—do
not dislike me for it if you can help—I
am plain. I know it by the joint and honest
testimony of all my brethren. I have had no trouble
in gathering the truth from them. A hundred times
they have volunteered it, with that healthy disregard
of any sickly sensitiveness which arms one against
blows to one’s vanity through all after-life.
Yes: I am plain; not offensively so, not largely,
fatly, staringly plain, but in a small, blond, harmless
way. However, Sir Roger thinks me pretty.
Did not he say so, in unmistakable English? I
have tried darkly to hint this to the boys, but have
been so decisively pooh-poohed that I resolve not to
allude to the subject again. Not only am I plain
now, but I shall remain plain to my life’s end.
Unlike the generality of ugly heroines, you will not
see me develop and effloresce into beauty toward the
end of my story.
