“What about?”
“I haven’t been doing any thing; it’s other people; it’s always other people,” she said plaintively, “somebody is always doing something to upset my plans. You do not sympathize with me, you never do.”
“I do not know how to sympathize with any thing that is not straightforward and true, and your course is rather zigzag.”
“Dr. Towne said—”
“You haven’t been talking to him,” interrupted Tessa, flushing.
“No, only he called to see father and I was home alone and he asked me what ailed me and I had to tell him that I didn’t want to be married.”
“Well, what could he say?”
“He said, ‘Stay with your father and be a good girl,’” laughed Sue, “the last thing I would think of doing. Father looks so glum and says, ‘Oh, my little girl, what shall I do without you! I wish that fellow was at the bottom of the sea!’ So do I, too. I don’t see why I ever promised to marry him! I think that I must have been bereft of my senses.”
“Why not ask him to wait a year—you will know your own mind—if you have any—by that time.”
“Oh, deary me! I’d be married to John Gesner or some other old fool with money by that time! You don’t mind being an old maid, but I do!”