"Didn't I tell you? I supposed you'd know. As father would say, 'There are some things which even this Court may be supposed to understand.'"
Patty was secretly glad to get away. To escape from Montfield seemed like an escape from herself. She was restless and dissatisfied, and even the remonstrances of the family at her being away upon Thanksgiving Day fell upon heedless ears. Once the plan was proposed, she felt a feverish desire for its accomplishment until she was actually in the train moving towards Boston. At first she experienced a feeling of relief, as if she had left care and trouble behind; but scarcely had the hills of Montfield faded from sight than she longed to turn back. At home she at least was where she might see her lover, even if it were but to quarrel with him. At home she could sit brooding at her window, looking towards the Putnam place, and imagining the life and the thoughts of its master. Hardly could she restrain the tears which pressed to her eyes as the train bore her farther and farther from home; but with angry pride she controlled herself, and laughed gayly at all Flossy's nonsense.
Mr. Plant had received her kindly; and, in the distractions of pleasure-seeking and of shopping, Patty had forgotten or overcome her sentimental woes until this morning.
Now, with this cheerless rain steadily falling, and Flossy closeted with her father, to whom she now first disclosed her engagement, Patience found herself homesick and miserable.
"There is one thing certain," she mused. "I have been a fool to care for Tom as I have—and I have. He's a man, after all; and all men are alike, I suppose,—self-contained and self-indulgent. Not that he's as bad as most of them; but he's a man; and—I'm a woman. Either there must be some men different, or a woman could never be happy with any of them. There! Who'd suppose I could be such a fool? I have been very fond of Tom,—very, very fond: I'm not sure I didn't love him just a little bit. He must have cared for me something, or he never could have kissed my hand so. Oh, dear! it's all over now. There comes Floss. I wonder what uncle Chris said."
"I've done it," Flossy remarked coolly, entering, and seating herself with a nimble spring upon the dressing-table. "The paternal astonishment is extreme, not to say alarming."
"I think it likely," Patty answered.
"Papa didn't seem very enthusiastic over my marrying a farmer," her cousin went on in the same abstracted way. "But, as I told him, it isn't as if he'd got to have the farm here in the way."
"Still a farm would be convenient to have in the house," said Patty, laughing.
"Do you know," the other continued, "it was only my profound sagacity that brought him round."