The Late Mrs. Null

by Frank R. Stockton

Lawrence devoted that evening to his letter. It was a long one, and was written with a most earnest desire to embrace all the merits of each of the two kinds of letters, which have before been alluded to, and to avoid all their faults. When it was finished, he read it, tore it up, and threw it in the fire.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The next day opened bright and clear, and before ten o'clock, the thermometer had risen to seventy degrees. Instead of sitting in front of the fireplace, Lawrence had his chair and table brought close to his open doorway, where he could look out on the same beautiful scene which had greeted his eyes a few days before. "But what is the good," he thought, "of this green grass, this sunny air, that blue sky, those white clouds, and the distant tinted foliage, without that figure, which a few days ago stood in the foreground of the picture?" But, as the woman to whom, in his soul's sight, the whole world was but a background, was not there, he turned his eyes from the warm autumnal scene, and prepared again to write to her. He had scarcely taken up his pen, however, when he was interrupted by the arrival of Miss Annie, who came to bring him a book she had just finished reading, a late English novel which she thought might be more interesting than those she had sent him. The book was one which Lawrence had not seen and wanted to see, but in talking about it, to the young lady, he discovered that she had not read all of it.

"Don't let me deprive you of the book," said Lawrence. "If you have begun it, you ought to go on with it."

"Oh, don't trouble your mind about that," she said, with a laugh. "I have finished it, but I have not read a word of the beginning. I only looked at the end of it, to see how the story turned out. I always do that, before I read a novel."

This remark much amused Lawrence. "Do you know," said he, "that I would rather not read novels at all, than to read them in that way. I must begin at the beginning, and go regularly through, as the author wishes his readers to do."

"And perhaps, when you get to the end," said Miss Annie, "you'll find that the wrong man got her, and then you'll wish you had not read the story."

"As you appear to be satisfied with this novel," said Lawrence, "I wish you would read it to me, and then I would feel that I was not taking an uncourteous precedence of you."

"I'll read it to you," said she, "or, at least, as much as you want me to, for I feel quite sure that after you get interested in it, you will want to take it, yourself, and read straight on till it is finished, instead of waiting for some one to come and give you a chapter or two at a time. That would be the way with me, I know."

"I shall be delighted to have you read to me," said Lawrence. "When can you begin?"