“The will of God.”
“Oh!” Sue drew nearer as if she were frightened. After a while she spoke: “I’m so sorry for dear Mrs. Towne. She has every thing in the world but the thing she wants most. She said one day that she would be willing to be the poorest woman in Dunellen if she might have a daughter. She said it one day after we had passed you; you were alone, picking up leaves near the corner by the brook. ‘A daughter like that,’ she said, and she turned to look back at you; you were standing still with the leaves in your hand. Mr. Ralph didn’t say anything, but he looked back, too. I said, ‘That’s Tessa Wadsworth.’ Mrs. Towne said, ‘Do you know her, Ralph?’ and he said, ‘I have met her several times.’”
Tessa had wiped her gold pen and slipped it into its morocco case; she closed her writing-desk as she said cheerily: “Now about this winter, Sue; what do you intend to do?”
“You don’t know how horrid it is at home! Father always has his pockets full of bottles and he doesn’t care for the things that interest me; all he talks about is his ‘cases,’ and all Aunt Jane cares for is house-work and the murders in the newspapers; Dr. Lake is splendid, but he’s so poor and he’s low-spirited when he isn’t full of fun; and when his engagement with father is ended he’ll set up for himself, and it will take him a century to afford to be married.”
“Sue, look up at me and listen.”
Sue looked up and listened.
“I pray you don’t flirt with Dr. Lake.”
Sue laughed a conscious laugh.
“Men flirt; they haven’t any hearts.”
“He has. You do not know the influence for evil that you may become in his life.”