She was very much astonished, and somewhat touched, I suppose, for she cried too, a little, and we kissed one another several times, which we are not much in the habit of doing.—Till, suddenly, I recollected Treherne, the orange-tree, and “the usual thing.” Her lips seemed to burn me.
“Oh, Lisa, I wish you wouldn't. I do wish you wouldn't.”
“Wouldn't what? Don't you want me to be engaged and married, child?”
“Not in that way.”
“In what way, then?”
I could not tell. I did not know.
“After the fashion of Francis and Penelope, perhaps? Falling in love like a couple of babies, before they knew their own minds, and then being tied together, and keeping the thing on in a stupid, meaningless, tiresome way, till she is growing into an elderly woman, and he—no, thank you, I have seen quite enough of early loves and long engagements. I always meant to have somebody whom I could marry at once, and be done with it.”
There was a half-truth in what she said, though I could not then find the other half to fit into it, and prove that her satisfactory circle of reasoning was partly formed of absolute, untenable falsehood, for false I am sure it was. Though I cannot argue it, can hardly understand it, I feel it. There must be a truth somewhere. Love cannot be all a lie.
My sister and I talked a few minutes longer, and then she rose, and said she must go to bed.
“Will you not wish me happiness? 'Tis very unkind of you.”