“Well, then, what makes you so cross? Come here, Milly, and tell me why you can’t be satisfied with my assurance.”
She went, and putting her little hand within his arm, looked up in his face, and said softly,—
“What does it amount to, Ralph? Only to this, that though you admire Annabella so much, and for qualities that I don’t possess, you would still rather have me than her for your wife, which merely proves that you don’t think it necessary to love your wife; you are satisfied if she can keep your house, and take care of your child. But I’m not cross; I’m only sorry; for,” added she, in a low, tremulous accent, withdrawing her hand from his arm, and bending her looks on the rug, “if you don’t love me, you don’t, and it can’t be helped.”
“Very true; but who told you I didn’t? Did I say I loved Annabella?”
“You said you adored her.”
“True, but adoration isn’t love. I adore Annabella, but I don’t love her; and I love thee, Milicent, but I don’t adore thee.” In proof of his affection, he clutched a handful of her light brown ringlets, and appeared to twist them unmercifully.
“Do you really, Ralph?” murmured she, with a faint smile beaming through her tears, just putting up her hand to his, in token that he pulled rather too hard.
“To be sure I do,” responded he: “only you bother me rather, sometimes.”
“I bother you!” cried she, in very natural surprise.
“Yes, you—but only by your exceeding goodness. When a boy has been eating raisins and sugar-plums all day, he longs for a squeeze of sour orange by way of a change. And did you never, Milly, observe the sands on the sea-shore; how nice and smooth they look, and how soft and easy they feel to the foot? But if you plod along, for half an hour, over this soft, easy carpet—giving way at every step, yielding the more the harder you press,—you’ll find it rather wearisome work, and be glad enough to come to a bit of good, firm rock, that won’t budge an inch whether you stand, walk, or stamp upon it; and, though it be hard as the nether millstone, you’ll find it the easier footing after all.”