Peter told her in his off-hand way, in Auntie’s presence too, that when she was a few years older he might possibly make love to her, and probably marry her, but not to build upon this as a promise.
Mattie told him he was an old man, and he had better marry Sarah. She said Robert wouldn’t mind, because Robert had Trots, the pony.
Mattie, and Jill, and I, visited the Thunderbolt. Mr Moore was still in charge, and we talked much of old times and poor Tom Morley, but we did not play at pirates, though Mrs Moore pulled out the black flag and displayed it. She was always going to keep it, she said, as a memento of days gone by.
On board the hulk, Mattie took me aside to show me something, which she did with sparkling eyes and a heightened colour. It was only the little letter that I had put on her pillow.
“But,” said Mattie, “of course we always pray for you when far away at sea, only there is one word in this letter that I don’t like, quite I mean.”
“And what is that, Mattie?”
“Why do you say, ‘Poor Jill’?” I do not know how it was, but at that very moment a kind of shadow passed over my heart: I cannot otherwise define it—a kind of cold feeling.
“I don’t know, Mattie,” I replied, looking, I’m sure more serious than I intended, for my looks were mirrored in Mattie’s face. “I don’t know, Mattie; but I often think something will happen to ‘poor Jill’—”
“There it is again—‘poor Jill.’”
“Only,” I added, “Heaven, forbid it should be in my lifetime, Mattie.”