"Vesta Kirtland," said Mrs. Garrison, as they entered the shadow of the woods, "your face tells me plainly that you know I have some object in asking you to walk with me here. I have.
"I am proud, cold, indifferent regarding you people here; I have not noticed you, hardly even by recognition, if we chanced to meet in the lanes; yes, I know. I bring no personal claims. But"—she was going to say, "you are fond of Notely," but she looked at the girl, and a proud, sarcastic smile curved her lips instead—"my son, Notely Garrison, adores you, I believe? I do not know whether you care for him; I presume not so ardently; but if you were even a little fond of him, for the sake of childhood days when he made you his little playmate—you would try to do the best for his good now—would you not, child?"
Vesty showed so few symptoms of slow consumption, and the lions in the gateway of her soul glowed so ominously, that Mrs. Garrison concluded to be brief. She turned her face away a little; the operation was unpleasant, and she took out the knife, only in speech.
"Notely has quixotic ideas in many ways: if he had given any ground for a foolish confidence in his boyhood he would hold to it now, against all his life's advancement, filial duty—yes, even against personal inclination, for that matter."
Mrs. Garrison was a resolved surgeon. "Do you know what Notely's prospects are in life—socially, politically, financially? But he must take the tide as it serves. To turn now is to lose all. He has many friends. He is beloved by a rich, beautiful, accomplished girl, influential in that sphere where her family have for so long moved. I seem cruel, child."
"Call me by my name. Call me Vesty Kirtland. I hate you! With my whole heart and soul I hate you!"
So the bold lions at the gate, desperately guarding sea-depths of pain behind.
"Really, Vesta Kirtland! if things were different I would rather be mother-in-law to you than to Grace Langham. You are a pupil worthy of my metal! You are fire, I see. Bravo!"
Vesty stood with her head on her arm, resting against a tree, holding herself.
"I do not know that there is anything more to say. Notely will never seek his own release. But, if you loved him truly——"