"She's to let him know before we leave."
The colonel laughed. "And so he's to hang about here on uncertainties for two whole days! That is rather rough on him. Fanny, what made you so eager for this business?"
"Eager? I wasn't eager."
"Well, then,—reluctantly acquiescent?"
"Why, she's so literary and that."
"And what?"
"How insulting!—Intellectual, and so on; and I thought she would be just fit to live in a place where everybody is literary and intellectual. That is, I thought that, if I thought anything."
"Well," said the colonel, "you may have been right on the whole, but I don't think Kitty is showing any particular force of mind, just now, that would fit her to live in Boston. My opinion is, that it's ridiculous for her to keep him in suspense. She might as well answer him first as last. She's putting herself under a kind of obligation by her delay. I'll talk to her—"
"If you do, you'll kill her. You don't know how she's wrought up about it."
"O well, I'll be careful of her sensibilities. It's my duty to speak with her. I'm here in the place of a parent. Besides, don't I know Kitty? I've almost brought her up."