“Thank you, Sarah; you are a perfect treasure.”
“Whatever I was, or whatever I am, Charley, I can never be anything more to you than a mere acquaintance—I don't think ever we were much more—but what I want to tell you is, that if ever you have any serious notion of me, you must put it out of your head.”
“Why so, Sarah?”
“Why so,” she replied, hastily; “why, bekaise I don't wish it—isn't that enough for you, if you have spirit?”
“Well, but I'd like to know why you changed your mind.”
“Ah,” said she; “well, afther all, that's only natural—it is but raisonable; an' I'll tell you; in the first place, there's a want of manliness about you that I don't like—I think you've but little heart or feelin'. You toy with the girls—with this one and that one—an' you don't appear to love any one of them—in short, you're not affectionate, I'm afeard. Now, here am I, an' I can scarcely say, that ever you courted me like a man that had feelin'. I think you're revengeful, too; for I have seen you look black an' angry at a woman, before now. You never loved me, I know—I say I know you did not. There, then, is some of my raisons—but I'll tell you one more, that's worth them all. I love another now—ay,” she added, with a convulsive sigh, “I love another; and, I know, Charley, that he can't love me—there's more lightnin'—what a flash! Oh, I didn't care this minute if it went through my heart.”
“Don't talk so, Sarah.”
“I know what's before me—disappointment—disappointment in everything—the people say I'm wild and very wicked in my temper—an' I am, too; but how could I be otherwise? for what did I ever see or hear undher our own miserable roof, but evil talk and evil deeds? A word of kindness I never got from my father or from Nelly; nothing but the bad word an' the hard blow—until now that she is afeard of me; but little she knew, that many a time when I was fiercest, an' threatened to put a knife into her, there was a quiver of affection in my heart; a yearnin', I may say, afther kindness, that had me often near throwin' my arms about her neck, and askin' her why she mightn't as well be kind as cruel to me; but I couldn't, bekaise I knew that if I did, she'd only tramp on me, an' despise me, an' tyrannize over me more and more.”
She uttered these sentiments under the influence of deep feeling, checkered with an occasional burst of wild distraction, that seemed to originate from much bitterness of heart.
“Is it a fair question,” replied Hanlon, whose character she had altogether misunderstood, having, in point of fact, never had an opportunity of viewing it in it's natural light; “is it a fair question to ask you who is it that you're in love wid?”