“Oh, stuff and nonsense, child!”
“But it is, aunt; it’s dreadful—worse than anything. You never knew how bad it was.”
“No, child,” said Aunt Sophia softly—“so people say;” and she laid her hand tenderly upon the head of the sobbing girl.
“It—it’s bad enough when—when you think—he loves you—and you—you—you—you are waiting—for him to speak; but—when—wh—wh—when he doesn’t speak at all, and—and you find out—he—he loves some one else—it—it breaks your heart,” sobbed poor Naomi. “I shall never be happy again.”
“Hush, hush, my darling. Not so bad as that, I hope. And pray, who is is that you love, and who loves some one else?”
“Nobody!” cried Naomi, lifting her face and speaking passionately, and with all the child-like anger of a susceptible girl with no very great depth of feeling. “I hate him—I detest him—I’ll never speak to him again. He’s a wicked, base, bad man, and—and—I wish he was dead.”
“Softly, softly. Why, what a baby love is this! Come, come, Naomi; we can’t all pick the bright fruit we see upon the tree; and, my child, those who do, often wish, as I daresay Eve did, that they had left it untouched.”
“I—I don’t know what you mean, aunt dear, but it’s very, very cruel. I did think him so nice and good and handsome.”
“Poor child!” said Aunt Sophia, smiling as the girl rested her head upon her arm, which was upon the old lady’s knee. “And who is this wicked man? Is it Doctor Scales?”
“Oh, what nonsense, aunt! He has always treated me as if I were a child, and—and that’s what I am. To think that I should have made myself so miserable about such a wretch!”