“I am trying all I can to forget that day; but, oh! I dream of it every night, and, oh! I don’t think that I can ever be the same careless, light-hearted girl again!” she cried, shuddering. “I shall never forget my sensations as I plunged through the ice, down, down, down to the bottom of the river, believing that I was going to my death. I was wondering if I should go to Heaven, for I did not think I had been such a bad girl, only a bit vain, maybe.”
“A bit vain,” he echoed, wondering if all her coquetries lay so lightly on her conscience.
“Yes, I have been vain, and I remembered it then,” conceded Viola, demurely. “I have believed people when they told me I was pretty, and I rejoiced in exciting admiration. Only that morning I admired myself so much in my new skating suit, and thought what a sensation I should create on the ice. But oh, how I repented everything when I went crashing through into the cold water! Oh, how good God was to send some one to save me! I shall try to be a better girl the rest of my life!” she added, seriously, her eyes growing soft with the dew of threatening tears.
Aunt Edwina was listening, though she seemed so busy, for she interposed and said:
“You know, dear, Doctor Herron said you must not permit your mind to dwell on the shock of that accident. He says it will make you nervous if you don’t put it out of your mind.”
“But, auntie, it seems to me that I ought to keep it in mind always so as to be a better girl, for indeed I mean to be hereafter,” objected Viola, with the most charming humility.
“Pshaw, child, you’ve always been sweet and good with one exception—you flirt too much. But I don’t suppose you can help that any more than you can help breathing. It was born in you, and maybe it doesn’t do much harm,” returned the old lady, quite forgetting Desha’s presence.
Viola blushed up to the edges of her silky dark hair and stole a glance at him.
“I wish that you could judge me as kindly,” she murmured, almost entreatingly.
“Miss Van Lew!” deprecatingly.