“Nothing in the world, I fancy,” answered Letty, laughing still more; and when the two girls had their last interview they misunderstood and disesteemed each other more than at their first.
Driving home through the odorous dusk, in the chaise by the Colonel’s side, Letty pondered over the remarkable ways of some people. The idea of a man dictating his plans to a woman before he married her—or after, for that matter. Farebrother had asked her what she would like, and their plans were made solely and entirely by Letty. “But I think,” she reflected, as she laid her pretty head back in the chaise, “that I would do whatever he asked me to do—because, after all, he is twice the man that my cousin Archy is, and deserves to be loved twice as much—” and “he” meant Farebrother, who was, at that very moment, working hard for Letty in his office on a noisy New York thoroughfare. And when his work was done, he turned for refreshment to a photograph of her which he kept in that breast pocket reserved for such articles, and gazed fondly at her face in its starlike purity—and then smiled. He never looked at Letty or thought of her that, along with the most tender respect, he did not feel like smiling; and Letty never could and never did understand why it was that Farebrother found her such an amusing study.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] A ghost.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original.