"You allus were such a gal to talk when once set a going, Mattie—now doee be as careful as you can! When I come back from marketing, I'll hope it's all done atween you two."
Ann Packet withdrew; the two girls—we may say, despite the difference of position between them, the two friends—looked at each other for a short while longer. Mattie was the first to speak.
"Now you have come, Harriet, you must tell me all that has happened since we parted—every scrap of news that affects you is always welcome to me."
"Shall I sum it up in three words, that will content you, Mattie—I am happy."
"I am so glad—so very glad! Harriet," she added more eagerly, "you do love him? It isn't a fancy, like—like the others?"
"Mattie, I love him with my whole heart—I never loved before—I feel that the past was all romantic folly. You don't know what a noble fellow he is—how kind and thoughtful!"
"Yes—I do."
"Ah! but you don't know him as I know him; the truth of his inner self, the nobleness of his character, the earnestness of his nature. Mattie, I feel that I have deceived him—that I should have told him all about Mr. Darcy, and trusted in his generosity, in his knowledge of me, to believe it. It was a cruel promise that you wrung from me."
"Harriet, I was thinking of your own good name, and of the story that the world would make from yours. I think I was right."
We wiser people, with principles so much higher, think Mattie was wrong, as she thought herself, in the days that were ahead of her.