"No, that was done on purpose."
"So it was, and I should like to do it again, but I will not, so rudely. Pray forgive me."
What had she to forgive? what to be angry about. How could she hold out against that, "I should like to do it again?"
After all she was not half so angry as Athalia. And what was she angry about? That he had kissed Jeannette instead of her? Take care, little heart, jealousy is creeping in among thy pulsations. Take care, big heart, for just now Charley enters the scene, and before he has observed that a stranger is in the room, he has kissed Athalia.
Mischief has broke loose to-night. What is in the men? What is in Walter Morgan, that a kiss given to that girl, for the first time seen that night, should send a pang to his heart? How it goes throbbing through every nerve, and pricks into the very core of sensation. Take care, big heart and little heart, nature is at her sports and she always makes pleasures sweet by contrast with pain.
Finally, all are reconciled. How they do laugh over the queer mistakes. Jeannette would have sooner struck a bear than him, yet he did not bite her. Charley would have sooner kissed that same bear, and risked the hug, than have kissed Athalia before a stranger, for he is a good boy, a little mischievous, but would never do a thing to hurt the feelings of another, particularly a woman.
How they did sit, and talk, and laugh, and enjoy happiness, such as Walter had never found in rose-wood furnished parlors. What would his proud sisters say, if they knew how "low he had sunk himself, to keep company with sewing girls?" But he would not tell them. Take care, young man, you are breaking in upon the conventionalities of life. You must stick to your caste, in America as well as India. You may lay your heart at the feet of anything that is old and ugly, even as your sisters, so that she is ton and of the ton—the upper ton. But offer to love one who lives, barely lives, by her needle, and see how your own flesh and blood will hate you.
So passed the evening away. Then Walter would go. But he wanted to hear Athalia sing once more. No. She had no piano. His hand was in his pocket again. How he would like to send her one to-morrow, but he dared not say so. He did look around the room, to see where he could set it. There was no room. She could not sing any more to-night. Ask Jeannette. She sings a beautiful little song while we are at work. No, she could not. She was afraid to sing before strangers. But Charley asked her, in his blandest manner, and then she would sing one verse if he would go right home. How anxious she was to get rid of him. So she sung:
"Why bitter life with useless tears,
With mourning unavailing?
Why bitter hope with ceaseless fears,
Of shoals where we are sailing?
With lively song and music peals,
Make life just like the ocean,
When flapping sails a zephyr steals,
To toss us with its motion,
Motion, motion, motion.
To toss us with its motion."
"There now, I hope you are satisfied. If not you may go, for I shall not sing another word to-night. I don't know how I came to do that."