How terrible the child is! Now, Pet is one of those persons who go about lacerating people and clothing their ignorance, or their insolence, in the garb of honesty.
“I am honest,” say they, “so you must not be offended, but is it true that your grandfather was hanged for being a pirate?” Or, “I believe in being perfectly honest with people. How cross-eyed you are!”
This is why honesty is so disreputable. When you say of a woman, “She is one of those honest, outspoken persons,” it means that she will probably hurt your feelings, or insult you in your first interview with her.
I don’t like to admit it even to you, Tabby, but I am horribly shaken up. After all these years of talking about myself to you as an Old Maid, and knowing that I am one, to hear myself called such, and to catch a glimpse of the way I appear to the oncoming generation, shakes me to the foundation of my being. Soon I shall be pushed to the wall, as something too worn out to be needed by bright young people. Soon I shall be one of the old people whom I have so dreaded all my life. Dear Tabby-cat! You can remember when Missis received love-letters, can’t you? They are not all in the japanned box, are they? Do I seem old to you, kitty? Why, there is actually a tear on your gray fur. Dear me, what a silly Old Maid Missis is!
You see, after all, I have not been honest, even with myself. And, just between you and me, I will say that I abominate honesty in other people. There!
VIII
A GAME OF HEARTS
“Man proposes, but Heaven disposes.”
Tabby, did you ever hear me speak of Charlie Hardy? No, of course not. Your mother must have been a kitten when I knew Charlie the best. He is a nice boy. Boy! What am I talking about? He is as old as I am. But he is the kind of man who always seems a boy, and everybody who has known him two days calls him Charlie.