“I have no such reasonable request to make, uncle. I have never wanted new ribbons from you or gay toys. Even from my own mother I have not wanted them;—not wanted them faster than they seemed to come without any asking.”
“No, no; you have been a good girl.”
“I have been a happy girl; and quite happy with those I loved, and with what Providence had given me. I had nothing to ask for. But now I am no longer happy, nor can I be unless you do for me this which I ask of you. I have wanted nothing till now, and now in my need I come to you.”
“And now you want a husband with a fortune!”
“No!” and that single word she spoke, not loudly, for her voice was low and soft, but with an accent which carried it sharply to his ear and to his brain. And then she rose from her seat as she went on. “Your scorn, uncle, is unjust,—unjust and untrue. I have ever acted maidenly, as has become my mother’s daughter.”
“Yes, yes, yes;—I believe that.”
“And I can say more than that for myself. My thoughts have been the same, nor have my wishes even, ever gone beyond them. And when this young man came to me, telling me of his feelings, I gave him no answer till I had consulted my mother.”
“She should have bade you not to think of him.”
“Ah, you are not a mother, and cannot know. Why should I not think of him when he was good and kind, honest and hard-working? And then he had thought of me first. Why should I not think of him? Did not mamma listen to my father when he came to her?”
“But your father was forty years old, and had a business.”