"But suppose I tell you that your going will make me as wretched as it can make you. What then?"
"How? It certainly would be unmanly for me to ask you to share my disgrace. A poor way of showing my love. I love you well enough to do anything in the world to make you happy."
Isa looked down a moment and began to speak, but stopped.
"Well, what?" said Albert.
"May I decide what will make me happy? Am I capable of judging?"
Albert looked foolish, and said, "Yes," with some eagerness. He was more than ever willing to have somebody else decide for him.
"Then I tell you, Albert, that if you go away you will sacrifice my happiness along with your own."
* * * * *
It was a real merry party that met at a petit souper at nine o'clock in the evening in the dining-room of the City Hotel some months later. There was Lurton, now pastor in Perritaut, who had just given his blessing on the marriage of his friends, and who sat at the head of the table and said grace. There were Albert and Isabel Charlton, bridegroom and bride. There was Gray, the Hoosier Poet, with a poem of nine verses for the occasion.
"I'm sorry the stage is late," said Albert. "I wanted Jim." One likes to have all of one's best friends on such an occasion.