"It was too late, when I was so sure of it as to wish that I had
never seen Mr. Kennedy. I felt it coming on me, and I argued with
myself that such a marriage would be bad for us both. At that moment
there was trouble in the family, and I had not a shilling of my own."
"You had paid it for Oswald."
"At any rate, I had nothing;--and he had nothing. How could I have
dared to think even of such a marriage?"
"Did he think of it, Laura?"
"I suppose he did."
"You know he did. Did you not tell me before?"
"Well;--yes. He thought of it. I had come to some foolish,
half-sentimental resolution as to friendship, believing that he and I
could be knit together by some adhesion of fraternal affection that
should be void of offence to my husband; and in furtherance of this
he was asked to Loughlinter when I went there, just after I had
accepted Robert. He came down, and I measured him too, as you have
done. I measured him, and I found that he wanted nothing to come up
to the height required by my standard. I think I knew him better than
you did."
"Very possibly;--but why measure him at all, when such measurement
was useless?"
"Can one help such things? He came to me one day as I was sitting up
by the Linter. You remember the place, where it makes its first
leap.
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