"I mustn't stop. I've got all the work to do," I said, knowing mother wouldn't like this. And yet I did not want to go. His soft words took hold of me. I thought that to be "his little comfort always" would be the best happiness I could have.
"So busy!" says he. "Ah! I should like you to be where you needn't work; able to sit still and amuse yourself, and have folks to wait upon you."
Little goose that I was, I thought this sounded first-rate. As if anybody was ever the happier for being idle! There's different kinds of work, no doubt; and everybody is happiest doing the sort of work for which he's best fitted by nature and training. No; I don't know as I've put that rightly either: for everybody's happiest doing the work which God has set him to do; and if he isn't fit for it by nature, God can shape him into fitness. But to have no work at all to do means nothing but discontent and unhappiness.
"That's what I should like," he said again. "To have lots of money, and a nice house, and you to sit there in a pretty parlour, with pretty dresses, and plenty of servants, and nothing ever to bother you."
Easy to see he had never kept house. If he had, he wouldn't have talked in the same breath about "plenty of servants" and "nothing to bother." But I didn't see through his words then.
"Well, I may be rich yet one day," he went on. "Who knows? And when I am—you may be sure I'll not forget. Kitty," says he slowly, "supposing some day I was to ask you to cast in your lot with me, when I'm a rich man? Or supposing I didn't wait to be rich?"
It was not an easy question to answer. For mind you, he didn't say, "Will you cast in your lot with me?" but only, "Supposing I was to ask you?" That might mean anything or nothing.
My heart went pit-a-pat, and I hung my head. His next words were not what I looked for. "Kitty," he said, "you mustn't tell anybody what I said just now. If you do, I shall have to leave by the next train, and never come back. Promise you won't."
And I, like a little goose again, frightened at the thought of driving him away, and never waiting to consider what was due to my father and mother, was so in his power that I said, "No, I won't!"
The moment the words had passed my lips, I knew they were wrong; yet I did not try to take them back.