“Be it entirely as you wish, aunt.”
“And if all this goes hopefully on,” said she, after a pause, “is Aunt Dorothea to be utterly forgotten? No more visits here,—no happy summer evenings,—no more merry Christmases?”
“Nay, aunt, I mean to be your neighbor. That cottage you have often offered me, near the rocks, I 'll not refuse it again,—that is, if you tempt me once more.”
“It is yours, and the farm along with it. Go to bed now, and leave me to write my note, which will require-some thought and reflection.”
“I know you 'll do it well. I know none who could equal you in such a task.”
“I 'll try and acquit myself with credit,” said she, as she sat down to the writing-desk.
“And what is all this about,—a letter from Miss Dorothea to Polly,” said Tom, as they drove along the road back to town. “Surely they never met?”
“Never; but my aunt intends that they shall. She writes to ask your sister to come on a visit here.”
“But why not have told her the thing was impossible? You know us. You have seen the humble way we live,—how many a care it costs to keep up that little show of respectability that gets us sufferance in the world, and how one little attempt beyond this is quite out of our reach. Why not have told her frankly, sir, 'These people are not in our station'?”
“Just because I acknowledge no such distinction as you want to draw, my good fellow. If my aunt has asked your sister to come three hundred miles to see her, she has thought over her request with more foresight than you or I could have given it, take my word for it. When she means kindly, she plans thoughtfully. And now I will tell you what I never meant to have spoken of, that it was only last night she asked me how could she be of use to you?”