“But your telling him, Edward, was not telling me. Why did you not tell me?”
“You might not have kept my secret, Julia. You know what naughty things are said of your sex, touching your inability to keep a secret.”
“Naughty things, indeed—naughty and untrue! I'm sure, I should have kept your secret, if you desired it. But why should it be a secret?”
“Why, indeed!” I muttered, as the shadow of my perverseness passed deeply over my heart. “Why, unless to protect myself from the sneers which would stifle my ambition, and the sarcasm which would have stung my heart.”
“But you have no fear of these from me, Cousin Edward,” she said gently, and with dewy eyes, while her fingers slightly pressed upon my wrist.
“I know not that, Cousin Julia, I somehow suspect everything and everybody now. I feel very lonely in the world—as if there was a destiny at work to make my whole life one long conflict, which I must carry on without sympathy or succor.”
“Oh, these are only notions, Edward.”
“Notions!” I exclaimed, giving her a bitter smile as I spoke, while my thoughts reverted to the three years of unremitting and almost uncheered labor through which I had passed.
“Yes, notions only, Cousin Edward. You are full of such notions. You every now and then start up with a new one; and it makes you gloomy and discontented—”
“I make no complaints, Julia.”