“I don’t know what to do with you.”
“Oh, something will happen to me before long. I’ll get married or die or something. I’m glad I had my things ready to go with the Townes, for now I have them ready to go to Miss Gesner’s. I wish I had a mother and my little brother hadn’t died. I’d like to have a real home like yours! I wouldn’t mind if it were as plain as this; but I’d rather have it like Old Place. Won’t Nan Gerard have a lovely time? Such a long journey, and Mr. Ralph will be so attentive, and she’ll be so proud to be with such a handsome fellow! Don’t you like to be proud of people that belong to you? I am always proud enough to go out with Mr. Ralph.”
“There is some one else to be proud of somewhere! Sue, can’t you be brave?”
“Somebody will have what I want,” said Sue. “I can’t bear to think of that. I shall have to drive past Old Place in father’s chaise with one horse, and I hate to drive with one horse! and see somebody in my place in silks and velvets and diamonds and emeralds! And she will have visitors from all over and Old Place will be full of good times and Mr. Ralph will let her do it all and be so kind to her! And she will be so proud and happy and handsome. Would you like that? You know you wouldn’t. Do you think that I really must give him up?”
Sue did not see the distressed face above her; she felt that the fingers that touched her hair and forehead were loving and pitiful.
“Don’t talk so; don’t think so! Forget all about Old Place. Do you not remember Mrs. Towne’s kindness? That is a happier thing to think of than the grounds and the house and handsome furniture.”
“I wish I had told you about it before,” sobbed Sue. “You would have made it right for me; then I wouldn’t have thought and thought about it until it was real. And now I can’t believe that it isn’t true and the house is shut up with only Mr. and Mrs. Ryerson and the boy to look after things and Mr. Ralph gone not to come back—ever, perhaps. If Mrs. Towne should die, perhaps he won’t come back but go off and be a doctor; for he doesn’t want to be married, he said so; he told his mother so. I don’t want him to be a doctor and have bottles in all his pockets and smell of medicine like father and Dr. Lake. He wouldn’t be Mr. Ralph any more.”
“So much the better for you.”
“Then you don’t think that he’s so grand.”
She answered quietly, surprising herself with the truth that she had not dared to confess to herself, “No. I do not think he is so grand.”