Uncle Terry: A Story of the Maine Coast

by Charles Clark Munn

"Of course," she answered, turning away her face; "it is so lonesome here, and there is no one I care to talk with except father and mother and Aunt Leach and Mandy Oaks."

Albert's heart began to beat with unusual speed. Never in his life before had he felt the impulse to utter words of love to any woman, and now he was face to face with the sweet though dreaded ordeal. For weal or woe, he could not go back and leave them unsaid. He had planned to say about what he had to Uncle Terry, beginning with a brief history of his life, his income, his hopes, and ending with asking her to share them. But the fortress of a woman's heart is seldom assailed that way, and with the queen of his, alone there beside him in that peaceful nook, where only the tiniest pulse of the ocean rippled on the rocks, he quite forgot his address to this fair judge and jury. "Telly," he said, "I promised to tell you a little story here to-day, but it's all said in a few words. I love you, and I want you to share my life and all that I can do to make you happy." A trifle incoherent, but expressive; and the answer?

For a moment, while the tide of feeling surged through that queen's heart, and into her cheeks, even to the tips of her ears, she was silent, and then as both her hands went to her face, she almost whispered, "Oh, no, no, I cannot! I can never leave father and mother alone here! It would break my heart!"

"But you do care a little for me, don't you, Telly?" he begged, trying to draw her hands away from her blushing face. "Just a little, Telly, only say a little, to give me hope."

And then, as one of the hands he was trying to gain was yielded, and as he softly stroked and then raised it to his lips, she turned her pleading eyes to him and said, "You won't be angry, will you? And you will come and see me once in a while, won't you? And let me paint a picture to give you when you come?"

It may have been the pain in his face added to her own desolation that overcame all else, for now she bowed her head and the tears came. "I thank you for so much, Telly," he answered tenderly, "and God bless you for it. I do not give you up and shall not, if I have to wait all my life for you. I can be patient if I only have hope." He brushed his face with one hand, and still holding hers, arose and drew her up. Then the bold wooer slyly put his arm around her waist, and as he drew her to him he whispered, "Just one, Telly, my sweetheart, to make this spot seem more sacred."

It was not refused.

It is no harm for a man to be refused; instead it is a beneficial tonic, and inevitably makes him realize how serious a step he is asking some good woman to take and how much it means to her. In Albert's case it was tempered by so many consolations, one at least of exquisite sweetness, that he did not really feel it a final refusal. That Telly's heart was very tender toward him he felt sure, and what is more, that in time he would overcome her one objection.

"Come out on the point, dear," he said as she tried to draw herself away, "so we can see the ocean better. I will tell you the story I promised last evening." He still held her a half prisoner, and when they were seated where the waves were beating almost at their feet, he began his recital. When he came to that portion in which Frye played a part, and ending in such a ghastly denouement, she shuddered.

"That is the one horrible part of taking your own life," she said, "to think how you will look and what those who find you will say. If I were to do such a thing I should first make sure no one would ever find me."