“Why no, not wholly,” he answered; “mother consented much easier than I supposed she would. The fact is, she’s changed some since she was at Meadow Brook. She’s joined the Episcopal Church, and though that in my estimation don’t amount to much, of course, she has to do better, for it wouldn’t answer for a professor to put on so many airs.”
As the daughter of a deacon, I felt it incumbent upon me to reprove the thoughtless young man, but it did no good, for he proceeded to say, “It’s all true, and there’s only one denomination who are sincere in what they profess, and that’s the Methodist. They carry their religion into their whole life, while the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Baptists sit on different sides of the fence, and quarrel like fun about High Church and Low, Old School and New, close communion and open communion, and all that sort of thing. I tell you, Rose, if I am ever converted—and mother thinks I will be—I shall be a roaring Methodist, and ride the Circuit at once!”
I was unused to the world, and had never heard any one speak thus lightly of religion; but I knew not what to say, so I kept silence, while he continued, “But I am rambling from my subject. Mother is a different woman, if she does read her prayers; and as she has never known a word about my writing to Anna, she consented to her coming, without much trouble, saying she would try to make it pleasant for her, and proposing that you too should accompany her, and go to school. You can’t imagine how delighted I was to find Anna what she is, and from the moment I met her in the parlor, Ada Montrose’s destiny, so far as I am concerned, was decreed; that is, if I can secure your sister; and I think I shall have no difficulty in so doing, for notwithstanding her affected coolness, it is easy to see that I am not indifferent to her.”
It was in vain for me to argue that he was doing Ada a great wrong, for he insisted upon saying that he was not. “She hadn’t soul enough,” he said, “to really care for any one, and even if she had, he would far rather commit suicide at once, than be yoked to her for life; she was so silly, so fawning, so flat!”
It was nearly dark when we reached home, and as the lamps were not yet lighted in the parlor, I went immediately to my room, where I found Anna lying upon the sofa, with her face buried in the cushions. I knew she was not asleep, though she would not answer me, until I had thrice repeated her name. Then lifting up her head, she turned towards me a face as white as ashes, while she said, motioning to a little stool near her, “Sit down by me, Rosa, I must talk to some one, or my heart will break.”
Taking the seat, I listened while she told me how much she had loved Herbert Langley—how she had struggled to overcome that love when she thought he had slighted her, and how when she saw him daily in his own home, it had returned upon her with all its former strength, until there came to her the startling news that he was engaged to another. “I cannot stay here,” said she. “I am going home. I have written to mother—see,” and she pointed to a letter which lay upon the table, and which she bade me read. It was a strange, rambling thing, saying that “she should die if she staid longer in Boston, and that she was coming back to Meadow Brook.”
“You can’t send this, Anna,” said I, at the same time tossing it into the grate, where a bright coal fire was burning.
At this bold act of mine she expressed no emotion whatever, but simply remarked, “I can write another or go without writing.”
“And you indeed love Herbert so much?” I said.
“Better than my life—and why shouldn’t I?” she replied. “He is all that is noble and good.”