“I'd rather she had a little more heart,” said Tony, peevishly.
“That may be; but she's right, after all.”
“And why is she right? why should n't she see me as I am now, and not persist in looking at me as I used to be?”
“Just because it's not her humor, I suppose; at least, I don't know any better reason.”
Tony wheeled suddenly away from his companion, and took two or three turns alone. At last he said, “She never told me so, but I suppose the truth was, all this time she did think me very presumptuous; and that what her mother did not scruple to say to me in words, Alice had often said to her own heart.”
“You are rich enough now to make you her equal.”
“And I 'd rather be as poor as I used to be and have the hopes that have left me.”
M'Gruder gave a heavy sigh, and, turning away, leaned on the bulwark and hid his face. “I'm a bad comforter, Tony,” said he at last, and speaking with difficulty. “I did n't mean to have told you, for you have cares enough of your own, but I may as well tell you,—read that.” As he spoke, he drew out a letter and handed it to him; and Tony, stooping down beside the binnacle light, read it over twice.
“This is clear and clean beyond me,” exclaimed he, as he stood up. “From any other girl I could understand it; but Dolly,—Dolly Stewart, who never broke her word in her life,—I never knew her tell a lie as a little child. What can she mean by it?”
“Just what she says—there—she thought she could marry me, and she finds she cannot.”