“Oh, dear, no!” interrupted Flossy. “Of course, I can’t say yes. I never dreamt of such a thing!”
“Flossy, don’t be such a goose!” suddenly cried Clarissa. “Do bring your mind down to the realities of life, and think of something besides school-girls.”
“If one mayn’t talk to an old clergyman about his parish,” cried Flossy, who was chiefly concerned in exculpating herself from the dreadfully unfamiliar notion of having trifled with the lover’s feelings.
“Old! Flossy, you are too silly,” said Clarissa, angrily. But Miss Venning interposed:
“Now give yourself time to recover. Mr Blandford should have tried to prepare your mind for it. Go up to your room and think it over, and try to understand yourself.” Miss Venning spoke somewhat as if Flossy had been a naughty child; but the girl was glad of the respite, and hurried away to her own room. There she soon began to recover herself. A lover in the flesh is a startling novelty to many maidens of this latter nineteenth century, and Flossy’s heart had not prepared her so to regard Mr Blandford. Her sisters were unmarried, and she had thought it very likely that she should not marry herself. But she had no doubt as to her own feelings, and too much sense to reproach herself after the first flutter was over. It was a simple, honest, womanly answer that she was beginning to write, when a knock interrupted her, and Clarissa came in.
“Flossy,” she said, in an agitated voice, “Don’t—don’t be a silly child! You don’t know what you are throwing away.”
“Indeed, Clary!” said Flossy, “I am quite sure that I do not love Mr Blandford. I am very sorry. I misunderstood him, but I am quite clear in my own mind; and if I talked nonsense at first it was just the fluster of the thing.”
“Oh, Flossy, you don’t know,” said Clarissa, with tears in her eyes. “Don’t be in a hurry! You think your life will always be like it is now; but you’ll get tired of it—you will, indeed. You’ll want something more. You’ll grow into a woman—and—and you will have missed your chance, and you’ll be sorry.”
“Do you wish me to accept him for the sake of being married?” said Flossy, in superb disdain.
“Oh, I cannot tell,” said Clarissa. “But, Flossy, I want you to think what you are making up your mind to. Girls now-a-days don’t have many chances, and, though you’re handsome, you are not so very taking. Don’t you see that it means, perhaps, never to be married—never to have— Flossy, think, think!”