‘Suppose then you try “yes,”’ said Mary, rather archly.
‘Oh, pshaw, Mary Scudder! You know better than that now. I look like it, don’t I?’
‘Why, yes,’ said Mary, looking at Cerinthy deliberately, ‘on the whole I think you do.’
‘Well, one thing I must say,’ said Cerinthy, ‘I can’t see what he finds in me. I think he is a thousand times too good for me. Why, you have no idea, Mary, how I have plagued him. I believe that man really is a Christian,’ she added, while something like a penitent tear actually glistened in those sharp, saucy, black eyes; ‘besides,’ she added, ‘I have told him everything I could think of to discourage him. I told him that I had a bad temper, and didn’t believe the doctrines, and couldn’t promise that I ever should. And after all, that creature keeps right on, and I don’t know what to tell him.’
‘Well,’ said Mary, mildly; ‘do you think you really love him?’
‘Love him,’ said Cerinthy, giving a great flounce, ‘to be sure I don’t—catch me loving any man. I told him last night I didn’t, but it didn’t do a bit of good. I used to think that man was bashful, but I declare I have altered my mind. He will talk and talk, ’till I don’t know what to do. I tell you, Mary, he talks beautifully too, sometimes.’ Here Cerinthy turned quickly away, and began reaching passionately after clover heads. After a few moments she resumed. ‘The fact is, Mary, that man needs somebody to take care of him, for he never thinks of himself. They say he has got the consumption, but he hasn’t any more than I have. It is just the way he neglects himself!—preaching, talking, and visiting—nobody to take care of him, and see to his clothes, and nurse him up when he gets a little hoarse and run down. Well, I suppose if I am unregenerate, I do know how to keep things in order; and if I should keep such a man’s soul in his body, I suppose I should be doing some good in the world; because if a minister don’t live, of course he can’t convert anybody. Just think of his saying that I could be a comfort to him! I told him that it was perfectly ridiculous, “and besides,” says I, “what will everybody think?” I thought that I had really talked him out of the notion of it last night; but there he was in again this morning; and told me he had derived great encouragement from what I said. Well, the poor man really is lonesome, his mother’s dead, and he hasn’t any sisters. I asked him why he didn’t go and take Miss Olladine Hocum. Everybody says she would make a first-rate minister’s wife.’
‘Well; and what did he say to that?’ said Mary.
‘Well, something really silly about my looks,’ said Cerinthy, looking down.
Mary looked up and remarked the shining black hair, the long dark lashes, lying down over the glowing cheek, where two arch dimples were nestling, and said quietly, ‘Probably he is a man of taste, Cerinthy. I advise you to leave the matter entirely to his judgment.’
‘You don’t really, Mary,’ said the damsel, looking up; ‘don’t you think it would injure him if I should?’