“Come and see who we have got here,” wrote my uncle, not quite grammatically; but the relatives are enough to puzzle any one who has not had Latin antecedents—if on the strength of good spirits I may venture upon a very ancient joke. I knew who it was; there could be no suspense or doubt. With those very brief words of his came a little note, in the hand that always made my hand shake.
“Darling Kit,” it said; “I am so sorry to hear of your long and fearful illness. But thank God you are getting better now, and will soon be as well as ever, I do hope. I cannot tell you what has happened, till you come, for it would only excite and worry you. It really seems as if there was something always to keep us from one another. But we must try to get over it, my dear; and if we keep our trust in a Good Providence, we shall. Your uncle is the kindest of the kind to me; and I am ever so much better, though I only came last night. I feel that I could wander all day long in these lovely gardens, with the blossoms, and the birds, and be as happy and as free from care as they are. But I am not to stay here, as your uncle thinks it better that I should have two pretty rooms at Widow Cutthumb’s, which are to be let very reasonably indeed, and I mean to write to ask my father for the money. You must not come back one day sooner, on account of my being here; mind that, or I shall be very angry with you. This is not because I do not long to see you, for you know better than that, dear Kit; but because I want you to get quite well, which is a great deal more to me than my own health. And so it always should be, if people love one another. Give my best regards to your aunt, Miss Parslow, and tell her that I love dogs quite as much as she does. And I once had a dear little dog of my own, but he was taken from me. Now, mind what I say; for I will be obeyed; at any rate until I have to swear to the contrary, which is never carried out by the ladies nowadays. My dear dear, I shall be afraid to look at you. They tell me you are so different from what you were. And I get long wrinkles up and down my forehead, if I ever allow myself to think of it; and though I try not to do it, it will come back again. But never mind; you will be as strong as ever when you have a good kiss from
“Your own Kitty.”
“Well, I call that something like a true love-letter;” my Aunt Parslow said, when she had contrived almost to compel me to show it to her, which I did not feel sure that I had any right to do. “That’s a true woman, though I never saw her. She thinks of you ten times as much as of herself; and no man can pretend to say that he repays it; even when he happens to deserve it; which has never happened to any gentleman I knew. You write, and you talk, and you go on with fine words, till people who listen to you believe, that you mean to give up your own ways altogether. And perhaps you do believe it, at the time, for you never know your own minds at all. But about three days of it—that’s all there is. I know it from friends of my own; though, thank God, I had sense enough never to try it myself. And then it is, ‘Mary, could you fill my pipe? It would be so sweet, dear, if you did it!’ Or—‘Louisa, I must have left my handkerchief upstairs. Did you happen to notice where I put it, dear?’ And she is fool enough to run for it, and kisses him on the bottom step; and her life is a treadmill afterwards. Your Kitty is quite of that sort, mind. I can see it in every word she writes.”
“Well, Aunt Parslow, and you would have been the same, if any gentleman had had the luck to offer you upon his altar.”
“I believe I should,” she answered, with a snap at first; and then she smiled slowly, and said, “No doubt I should, Kit. But try to be no worse than you can help with her.”
If anything can rouse a lover’s indignation—and there are too many things that do so—such a calm assumption of his levity and ferocity is the first to set it boiling. “What are you thinking of?” I asked, without even adding, “Aunt Parslow.”
“I am pleased to see you in that state of mind,” she continued; when gratitude alone preserved me, without even a half-glance at her twenty thousand pounds, from the murderous speech that was on my tongue. “But you are very young, Kit. You will come to know better, when you have had enough of this sweet Kitty. Enough very soon becomes too much. And then what do you do? You neglect them, and think that you are very good indeed, if you do no worse.”
Miss Parslow was not at all a spiteful woman; even too much the other way, if that can be. And of such things she could have no experience, because she had never risked it. But being deeply hurt, I said—“You know best.”