“Don’t fancy for a moment, Inza, that you love Frank more than I love Bart. It is not that my feelings have changed, but I have been ill and——”
“You are much better now. At times you are quite strong for a little while. Why, you attended the lacrosse game with me.”
“And was ill for two days after. I tried not to let you know how ill I was. I did not wish you to think me spleeny, Inza.”
Inza laughed musically.
“I know you too well to think anything like that,” she said. “I have known you to endure too much. Oh, no, no, no! you are not spleeny! Anything but that!”
“I never knew my mother to remember her well,” said Elsie. “My father told me lots about her. My mother was for many years a semi-invalid. If she seemed pretty well for a day or two, she was ill for weeks after. Father adored her. He told me that never was there a sweeter or more patient woman. He told me I was like her as he knew her when they first met. Even as a little girl I bore a remarkable resemblance to my mother. One old-fashioned picture of her was precisely like a picture I had taken, with the exception that there was a difference in our dresses and the way our hair was arranged. Father often said it was his prayer that I always remained well and strong.
“In every other way save in health he hoped I would exactly resemble my mother. I’ve meditated often on his words. I used to fear that some time I would become an invalid, the same as mother. That fear has grown upon me. It has taken a firm hold of me, and I cannot shake it off. Something seems to tell me that I shall never be wholly well and strong after this. A young man burdened with an invalid for a wife has a millstone about his neck, continually dragging him down. If he is a man of ambition and ability his life may be ruined. He can never rise as he would if he had a wife to cheer, encourage, and stimulate him to his best efforts. I believe Bart was meant by fate to become a great man. As his wife, if I were an invalid, I should hold him down. Therefore, Inza, I have resolved not to marry him—now.”
Elsie had spoken earnestly, sincerely, from the bottom of her heart. She meant the words she uttered. There was no shamming about it; she was not posing. She really feared she would become an incumbrance upon Bart Hodge, and, for that reason and that alone, she was not ready to marry him. On her part it indicated a most remarkable attitude and most astonishing self-sacrifice. Few girls, loving a man as she loved Hodge, would have paused to consider—would have firmly held the cup of happiness back—out of consideration for his future.
In these days it is seldom a girl thinks that she may make or mar the man whose bride she is to be. As a rule, the one thought of the girl is to gratify herself and her selfish desires for comfort, ease, position, and happiness. Not one girl in a thousand hesitates to marry a man through fear that she may become a burden to him.