"Hetty!"
I had been giving utterance to my sentiments on the subject of the importance which love plays in human lives; I think I got them from Byron. Hetty had been scoffing. I suspected her of paraphrasing my words with mischievous intention. But it seemed that she was actually in earnest.
"You talk about love wrecking people's lives, as if you know anything at all about it; I saw that paper-covered Byron in your workbox--and you can't see what's taking place underneath your very eyes."
"Hetty, what do you mean?"
"Poor Miss Frazer!"
She sighed, actually. Or she emitted a sound which appeared to me to be a sigh. A light dawned on me.
"You don't mean--you don't mean that you think that she's in love?"
Miss Frazer was short, square, and squat. Sandy-haired, with not much of that. Short-sighted, her spectacles would not keep straight owing to the absence of a bridge on her abbreviated nose. Freckled, you might have been able to stick a pin between some of the freckles, but I doubt it. To me, then, she seemed ancient; but I suppose she was about forty. And, considering her general appearance and style of figure, she had a most unfortunate fondness for Scotch plaids. Up to that moment my sentimentalism had been all theory. I had not associated the tender passion with Miss Frazer. It was left for Hetty to direct my theoretical sympathy into a practical channel.
"Do I think? No, I do not think."
"Do you know that she's in love?"