“So do I; but I can’t possibly get out of it, and then it’s a blessed escape to get away from here.”
“Do you really dislike your home?” asked her lover, wondering at this hitherto unknown characteristic in a young woman.
“I loathe it, and so does my sister, though she pretends to be domestic and religious and all that kind of thing. Lady Baldwin is an impossible person, and our housekeeping would disgrace the Union. If I had not had the entrée of plenty of good houses, and been in request, I should have been found hanging in one of the attics years ago.”
This candour gave Harrington an uncomfortably chilly feeling, as if a damp cold wind had blown over him, and then he told himself that it would be his privilege to initiate this dear girl in the tranquil delights of a happy home, which, while modest in its pretensions, should yet be smart enough to satisfy her superior tastes and aspirations.
“When do you go?” he asked, preparing to take leave.
“To-morrow. Your kindness has made everything easy to me.”
“Come back as soon as you can, love;” and then there was some lingering foolishness permissible between engaged lovers, and the beautiful Miss Baldwin’s head reposed for two or three minutes upon the articled clerk’s shoulder, while he looked into her eyes and told her that they were stars to light him on to fame and fortune.
“I hope they’ll show you a short cut,” she said.
He left her cheered by the thought that she was very fond of him; and so she was, but he was not the first, second, third, or fourth young man of whom she had been fond, nor was it a new thing to her to be told that her eyes were guiding stars.