“Falling in love, and marriage.”
“But I’m not in love—and that’s just the awful part of it! It’s of him I’m thinking. It’s so terrible to think that a man has fallen in love with you, that he cares as much as all that—when you know you can’t—you never will. I—I feel as though I had committed a crime!”
I took her into my arms again and I think I never loved her, my little sister, as I did at that moment. If this were American womanhood, I felt a sudden thrill of pride!
“Perhaps, it is not so serious—”
“It is, it is,” she protested, hiding her face against my shoulder. “If you had seen his face! I was so sorry for him, Davy. It’s terrible that he should come to care like that! Oh, don’t laugh at me—there’s no one else to go to but you—and do try to understand!”
“I couldn’t laugh at you, bless your honest little heart, and I think I understand,” I said, wondering a little if she knew her true feelings. “Is this the first time any man has proposed—”
“Yes, and I saw it coming, and I dreaded it so, and when I couldn’t prevent it I was so frightened. He was so terribly in earnest, and his face went so white. I—I couldn’t say a thing,—I just burst into tears and ran away. Oh, David, I feel so guilty. I can’t bear that any one should be so unhappy as that—just over me!”
“This is what life means, little sister,” I said, drawing her down beside me on the old chintz sofa. “These are the things no one can protect us from. And now, tell me, are you quite sure of your own feelings?”
She raised her eyes, her eyes clear as Bernoline’s, to me and in that moment I felt the spiritual kinship of true womanhood that lies underneath all social divisions.
“It will be a long time before I shall fall in love. I am only a girl now, Davy. I want to be a woman first, to have read and thought much. For I want to be fit to be at the head of my home and for the lives that may come to me.”