"I am not quite content with this match, nor with Orrin's tone. I had not looked for a lover's rhapsodies, knowing his critical taste in these matters, but he ought not to acknowledge or feel the need of apologies for his choice. I am afraid his love does not leave him as little to wish for and to fear, as mine does me."
He looked up at the portrait with a smile.
"But there is only one Jessie in the world, and she will be here to-morrow night."
Still standing before the picture, he made an involuntary gesture, as of folding something in his arms.
"My darling! soon to be my angel in the house! I think it would kill me to lose you now."
His sudden motion had struck a book from the corner of the table, exposing a letter that lay beneath. It was a foreign envelope, and had probably been given to the servant by the postman that afternoon, and placed there by her with the book on the top, for safe-keeping. An enclosure fell out as he opened the cover—a letter that had arrived in Heidelberg after he set out for home, said a line from a fellow-student in the University. The smile lingered lovingly about mouth and eyes, while he tore off the inner wrapper.
The superscription was Jessie's; the note the short and cold farewell she had indited after her parting with Orrin Wyllys, on the 6th of September.
"No harm done!" reiterated the affectionate kinsman, walking slowly along to his lodgings, under the pure moon. "I should have been sorry had she carried her threat into execution; spoiled her own prospects, and made Roy wretched. But I could find it in my heart to regret the witch even now that I am on the eve of beatification. The affair was interesting—most engaging while it lasted—had more cayenne and wine in it than this very lawful and eminently remunerative love-making. My 'lassie wi' the lint-white locks,' says it is 'just the sweetest thing in the world.' Peut être!
'An excellent piece of work, Madame Lady!
Would it were done!'"