What she said gave me an entirely new vision of life and love. "They were married and lived happy ever afterward" was what I had read in books. Now I saw all at once the other side of the medal. It was my first contact, too, with a nature strong enough to attempt to subdue life to will. I had seen only the subservient ones who had accepted life.
Deolda was a fierce and passionate reaction against destiny. It's a queer thing, when you think of it, for a girl to be brought up face to face with the wreck of a tragic passion, to grow up in the house with love's ashes and to see what were lovers turned into an old hag and a cantankerous, one-armed man nagging each other.
My aunt made one more argument. "What makes you get married to any of 'em, Deolda?"
Now Deolda looked at her with a queer look; then she gave a queer laugh like a short bark.
"I can't stay here forever. I'm not going back to the mill."
Then my aunt surprised me by throwing her arms around Deolda and kissing her and calling her "my poor lamb," while Deolda leaned up against my aunt as if she were her own little girl and snuggled up in a way that would break your heart.
One afternoon soon after old Conboy brought Deolda home before tea time, and as she jumped out:
"Oh, all right!" he called after her. "Have your own way; I'll marry you if you want me to!"
She made him pay for this. "You see," she said to my aunt, "I told you I was going to marry him."
"Well, then come out motoring tonight when you've got your dishes done," called old Conboy.