“I know—but I have just been wondering whether you had changed your mind yet, seeing as they are both single, and maybe anxious to make it up with each other.”
“I have not changed my mind,” he answered, watching the loosened icicles drop crackling from the eaves, and wishing she would change the subject.
She went on sadly:
“I would give anything to see poor Cinthy real happy again like she was that night. I used to be too strict with the child, I know, and I’ve repented it now. How happy she might have been if she’d had such a mother as Mrs. Varian, who would have spoiled and petted her as mothers do, and made her life so bright. I tell you, Everard, she is a good woman in spite of her pride. Our minister says she is so good to the poor, and, besides, she has given a thousand dollars to repair the church. He told me he did not believe she was so proud and exclusive as some people thought. He had called on her once, and she was very kind and sweet in a way, but there was something rather sad in her manner, or cynical, maybe, as if she had some trouble and was not resigned to it.”
Would she never get done talking on this (to her) most interesting subject?
Everard Dawn yawned impatiently, and answered thoughtlessly:
“Yes, she was always like that, generous to a fault, noble at heart, charming, but jealous, passionate, unreasonable.”
“Why, Everard, did you know her some time?” she exclaimed.
“I know a nun who did,” he answered curtly, getting up from his seat, and adding: “Rebecca, it is about sunset, and I will take a walk and a smoke before our early tea.”
Donning great-coat and hat, he hurried out-of-doors, thinking: