He looks at Isabel, and says he is afraid—“we can not go.”
“But why, uncle? It is only a little way, and we will be very careful.”
“I am afraid, my children; do not say any more: you can have the pony, and Tray, and play at home.”
“But, uncle—”
“You need say no more, my child.”
I pinch the hand of little Isabel, and look in her eye—my own half-filling with tears. I feel that my forehead is flushed, and I hide it behind Bella’s tresses—whispering to her at the same time—“Let us go.”
“What, sir,” says my uncle, mistaking my meaning—“do you persuade her to disobey?”
Now I am angry, and say blindly—“No, sir, I didn’t!” And then my rising pride will not let me say that I wished only Isabel should go out with me.
Bella cries; and I shrink out; and am not easy until I have run to bury my head in my mother’s bosom. Alas! pride can not always find such covert! There will be times when it will harass you strangely; when it will peril friendships—will sever old, standing intimacy; and then—no resource but to feed on its own bitterness. Hateful pride!—to be conquered, as a man would conquer an enemy, or it will make whirlpools in the current of your affections—nay, turn the whole tide of the heart into rough, and unaccustomed channels.
But boyhood has its Grief, too, apart from Pride.