"And a good riddance," muttered Mattie.
"Oh! Mattie, you cruel, _cruel_ girl, is this the sympathy you talked about a little while ago?"
"I"ve every sympathy with you, my own dear young lady," said Mattie; "I"m sorry to see how this is troubling you--you so young!--just now.
But I don"t think _he_ acted very properly, Miss Harriet, or that you were quite so careful of yourself as--as you might have been."
"I"m a wretched, wretched woman!"
"Does he know where you live?"
"Ye--es," she sobbed.
"And where did he live before he went to India?"
"Surrey."
"That"s a large place, I think. I haven"t turned to geography lately, but I fancy it"s a double map. If that"s all the address, it"s a good big one. May I ask his name?"
"Never," was the melodramatic answer.
"Ah! it does not matter much. I hope, for the sake of all down-stairs, you will try and forget it. It"s no credit; you were much too young, and he too old in everything. Oh! Miss Harriet, you and the other young ladies must have been going it down at Brighton!"
"It all happened suddenly, Mattie; I"m not a forward girl; they"re all of my age--oh! and ever so much bolder."
"A very nice school that must be, I should think," said Mattie, leaving the bed for the box, which she proceeded to uncord; "if I ever hear of anybody wanting to send their daughters to a finishing akkademy," Mattie was not thoroughly up in pure English yet, "I"ll just recommend that one!"
"Mattie," reproved Harriet, "you"ve got at all that you wanted to know, and now you"re full of bitter sarcasm."
"I"m full of bitter nothing, Miss," was the reply; "and oh!--you don"t know how sorry I feel that it has all happened, making you so old and womanly, before your time--filling your head with rubbish about--the chaps!"
Harriet said nothing--she sat and watched with dreamy eyes the process of uncording; only, when Mattie attempted to turn the box on its side, did she spring up and help to a.s.sist without a word.
"There, that"ll do," she said peevishly; "let me only unlock the box, and get at my night-things, that"s all I want. Mattie, for goodness sake, don"t keep so in the way!"
Mattie stood aside, and Harriet Wesden, with an impatient hand, unlocked the box, and raised the heavy oaken lid. Mattie"s eyes, sharp as needles, detected a small roll of written papers, neatly tied.
"Are these the letters, Miss Harriet?"
"Good gracious me, how curious and prying you are!" said Harriet, s.n.a.t.c.hing the packet from her hand. "I wish I had never told you a syllable--I wish you"d leave my things alone!"
"I beg your pardon--I only asked. It _was_ wrong."
"Well, there, I forgive you; but you are so tiresome, and old-fashioned.
I can"t make you out--I never shall--you"re not like other girls."
"Was I brought up like other girls, you know?" was the sad question.
"No, no--I forgot that--I beg your pardon, Mattie; I didn"t mean it for a taunt."
"G.o.d bless you, I know that. What are you doing?"
"Getting rid of these," thrusting the letters in the candle flame as she spoke. "I can trust you, but not them, Mattie."
"I"d hold them over the fire-place, then. If they drop on the toilet-table, we shall have the house a-fire."
Harriet took the advice proffered, and removed her combustibles to the place recommended. Mattie, on her knees by the box, watched the process.
"And there"s an end of _them_," Harriet said at last, in a decisive tone.
"And of him--say of him?"
"We parted for ever--but I shall always think of him--think, too, that perhaps I _was_ very young and thoughtless and vain, to lead him on, or to be led on. But oh! Mattie, he did love me--he wouldn"t have harmed me for the world!"
"He hasn"t spoken of writing--you haven"t promised to write any more."
"No--it was a parting for _ever_. Haven"t I said so, over and over again?"
"Then you"ll soon forget him, Miss Harriet--try and forget him, for your own sake--you can"t tell whether he wasn"t making game of you, for certain; he didn"t act well, for he wasn"t a boy, was he? And now go to sleep, and wake up in the morning your old self, Miss."
"I"ll try--I must try!"
"I don"t think that this fine gentleman will ever turn up again; if he does, you"ll be older to take your own part. Oh! dear, how contrary things do go, to be sure."
"What"s the matter now?"
"I did think I knew whom you were to marry."
"Who was it?" said Harriet, with evident interest in her question.
"Well, I thought, Miss Harriet, that you"d grow up, and grow up to be a young woman, and that Master Sidney underneath, would grow up, and grow up to be a young man, and you"d fall naturally in love with one another--marry, and be oh! so happy. When I"m hard at work at the lessons he or his father writes out for me sometimes, I catch myself forgetting all about them, and thinking of you and him together--and I your servant, perhaps, or little housekeeper. I"ve always thought that that would come to pa.s.s some day, and that he"d grow rich, and make a lady of you--and it made me happy to think that the two, who"d been perhaps the kindest in all the world to me, would marry some fine day.
I"ve pictered it--pictured it," she corrected, "many and many a time, until I fancied at last it must come true."
"Master Sidney, indeed!" was the disparaging comment.
"When you know him, you won"t talk like that," said Mattie; "he"s a gentleman--growing like one fast--and I don"t think, young as he is, that he would have acted like that other one you"ve been silly enough to think about."
"Silly!--oh! Mattie, Mattie, that isn"t sympathy with me--I don"t know whether you"re a child, or an old woman--you talk like both of them, and in one breath. Why did I tell you!--why did I tell you!"
"Because I was in earnest, and begged hard--because I was afraid, and you could not keep such a secret from me as that; and if you had wanted help--how I would have stood by you!"
Harriet noted the kindling eyes, and her heart warmed to the nondescript.
"Thank you, Mattie--one friend at least now."
"Always,--don"t you think so?"
"Yes, I do."