“I wonder if she—”
“My dear, it was centuries ago. One does n't think of love-affairs fifty years old. They dry up.”
“Respectable, and you pay a little.”
“But a charity really.”
That year the public library was built on Main and Gilbert Streets, the great elm fell down in the Institute yard, Mrs. Andrew Cutting died at ninety-eight, with good sense and composure, and here is a letter written by Miss Lucia to Babbie Cutting. Babbie Cutting, I remember, had eyes like a last-century romance, never fancy-free, and her dolls loved and were melancholy, when we were children together under the elms in Wimberton. The letter is written in thin, flowing lines on lavender paper.
My dear Child: I am afraid you thought that your question offended me, but it did not, indeed. I was engaged to Mr. John Solley many years ago. I think I had a very hasty temper then, which I think has quite wasted away now, for I have been so much alone. But then I sometimes fell into dreadful rages. Mr. Solley was a very bold man, not easily influenced or troubled, who laughed at my little faults and whims more than I thought he should.
You seemed to ask what sudden and mysterious thing happened to us, but, my dear, one's life is chiefly moved by trifles and little accidents and whims. Mr. Solley came one night, and I fancied he had been neglecting me, for I was very proud, more so than ordinary life permits women to be. I remember that he stood with his hands behind him, smiling. He looked so easy and strong, so impossible to disturb, and said, “You're such a little spitfire, Lucia,” and I was so angry, it was like hot flames all through my head.
I cried, “How dare you speak to me so!”
“I don't know,” he said, and laughed. “It seems perilous.”
I tore his ring from my finger and threw it in his face. It struck his forehead and fell to the floor without any sound. There was a tiny red cut on his forehead.