“John, I believe you; and I thank you more than I can tell for your intended kindness, but ‘tis better that we speak no further on this subject. It might beget unpleasant feelings, and I would not feel, nor have you feel, one shade of anger, for the world. My heart is sad enough when I think what a change one hour has wrought. No more the same John and Lulie we have ever been; no more the same playful attentions you have always paid me, nor the same thoughtless encouragement I have given. Respectful courtesy now our only intercourse. Oh, how little did I think, when I lightly returned your looks and smiles of love, to what it all would lead!”
“Lulie, darling, I cannot feel anger toward you, whatever you do; but, even if you hate me for it, I must tell you of Frank Paning. He is utterly destitute of principle. He does not love you, and if he did would only love you as his slave. He is tyrannical and overbearing, yet sycophantic in his nature, imposing on the weak and cringing to the strong. He is free and forward in the presence of ladies, and impure and slanderous in his remarks about them behind their backs. I have known him to leave a company of ladies, and then, for the mere applause of a vulgar throng, make witticisms on their appearance and manners that would have caused a blush in Cyprus. He does not bear a proper respect for you, for I have heard him publicly boast of your love, and make remarks that I have been forced to resent.”
“John, do not revile him any more. You perhaps mean well, but ‘tis an utter waste of breath. For years I have loved and trusted him; and if an angel were to stand upon the rippling water there and warn me, I would not believe Frank false. When I gave him my heart I gave him my life, and, though you and all the world turn against him, I will cling to him and trust him, and when he spurns me I will die.”
“May God protect you, Lulie, my own love, from all wrong,” and I kissed gently and respectfully her dear, soft cheek, henceforth to be for other lips. She did not reproach me, but sat gazing at the dancing sunlight on the water. I rose and took up the pole that we had left set in the bank. A fish had hung itself upon the hook, and, utterly exhausted by its unheeded efforts to disengage itself, came up from the water limp and motionless. Putting it on our string, and tying up our tackle, I assisted Lulie over the rail fence, and we ascended the hill and walked up the lane in silence.
Reader! did you ever love earnestly and devotedly? Did you ever, after months, perhaps years, of doubt and hesitation, at last make up your mind to declare it? and did you ever have it rejected, perhaps kindly, perhaps cruelly? If so, you know what I felt then.
So bitterly disappointed, so deeply humiliated to have confessed yourself so conceitedly mistaken, and such a wild despair in your heart as you think how she will greet another with her smiles, while you, poor fool, are forgotten; how another’s arms will fold her, another’s lips press hers! Oh! there’s a world of sad meaning in those exquisite lines of Tennyson’s:
“And sweet as those by hopeless Fancy feigned,
On lips that are for others.”
Again, before we reached home, we assured each other of our kind feelings, and agreed to act as nearly as possible in the same old way.
When we reached the house the others were at tea, the table being placed in the hall, without lamps, as the sun was hardly down. After being rallied for our solitary fish we took our seats, and father, taking from his pocket a bundle of letters, ran over them, and tossed one to me. I excused myself, and read it at the table. How my face burned and my hand shook as I found it was from Paning himself! His father and mother had gone to South Carolina, leaving him to devote the balance of his vacation to study. He had gotten lonely keeping house by himself, had written to Ned to join him, and they were coming up to spend a couple of weeks with me. They would not wait for my reply, as they knew I would be glad to see them, but would leave Wilmington by the next train.
I sat looking at the bold handwriting till the letters danced on the page, and father said: