He replied that there were two or three sketches of the same face about the house, and he did not care particularly for this one. It gave him great pleasure to give it to me, if I fancied it.
I hope I thanked him, but I am not at all certain that I did. I seized the picture with great goût, and ran into the library, and up to the lightest window, to enjoy it by myself.
Mr. Rutledge threw himself into a chair, and his hand being before his eyes, I could not see whether he slept or not. I looked long and earnestly at my favorite in every light, and from every point; then got up on a chair and reached down a Latin Dictionary to help translate the sentence written below the date. But I could not get it right; and gave up in despair.
That amusement exhausted, and no other presenting, in the course of time the unavoidable weariness, and want of elasticity consequent upon my three days' confinement to the house, began to make themselves felt, and at last, I thought, to become utterly unbearable. I conceived the mad plan of getting my shawl and hood, and escaping to the piazza for a little exercise, though the rain had beaten furiously upon almost every part of it. I got up, and was stealing noiselessly toward the door, when Mr. Rutledge, whom I had fancied asleep, said uneasily, without altering his position:
"Why do you go away?"
"I am so tired of the house, sir, I am going to wrap up and walk up and down on the piazza for a little while. It will not hurt me," I continued, pleadingly; "mayn't I?"
"On no account," he said decidedly; "it would be absurd, after the fever you have had."
"I am positive it would not hurt me, sir."
"And I am positive it would."
As Mr. Rutledge had not turned toward me at all, I suppose he did not see how very angry I looked, and how very red my face was. Perhaps his thoughts had gone off to something else, for he did not say anything more; and I stood drumming on the table, waiting for him to continue; determined, determined not to go back and sit down, till, exasperated beyond patience by his silence, I said, moving toward the door: