I said this to blamers of Cicely (relatives, the best blamers you can find anywhere). But, at the same time, it would have been my way, when he had come a courtin' me so far gone with liquor that he could hardly stand up—why, I should have told him plain, that I wouldn't try to set myself up as a rival to alcohol, and he might pay to that his attentions exclusively hereafter.
But she didn't. And he promised sacred to abstain, and could, and did, for most a year; and she married him.
But, jest before the marriage, I got so rousted up a thinkin' about what I had heard of him at college,—and I studied on his picture, which she had sent me, took sideways too, and I could see plain (why, he hadn't no chin at all, as you may say; and his lips was weak and waverin' as ever lips was, though sort o' amiable and fascinating),—and I got to forebodin' so about that chin, and my love for her wus a hunchin' me up so all the time, that I went to see her on a short tower, to beset her on the subject. But, good land! I might have saved my breath, I might have saved my tower.
I cried, and she cried too. And I says to her before I thought,—
“He'll be the ruin of you, Cicely.”
And she says, “I would rather be beaten by his hand, than to be crowned by another. Why, I love him, aunt Samantha.”
You see, that meant a awful sight to her. And as she looked at me so earnest and solemn, with tears in them pretty brown eyes, there wus in her look all that that word could possibly mean to any soul.
But I cried into my white linen handkerchief, and couldn't help it, and couldn't help sayin', as I see that look,—
“Cicely, I am afraid he will break your heart—kill you”—