“And yet I thought you were so fond of England?”
“So I am. I too like—nay, love that ease of manner which you all possess and which I cannot reach.”
Then there was silence between us for perhaps half a mile, and yet I was driving slow, as I did not wish to bring our journey to an end. I had fully made up my mind that it would be in every way better for my friend Pryor that he should give up all thoughts of this Western Aspasia, and yet I was anxious to talk to her about him as though such a marriage were still on the cards. It had seemed that lately she had thrown herself much into an intimacy with myself, and that she was anxious to speak openly to me if I would only allow it. But she had already declared, on a former occasion, that she would ask me no further question about Mr. Pryor. At last I plucked up courage, and put to her a direct proposition about the future tenor of her life. “After all that you have said about Mr. Hoskins, I suppose I may expect to hear that you have at last accepted him?” I could not have asked such a question of any English girl that I ever knew—not even of my own sister in these plain terms. And yet she took it not only without anger, but even without surprise. And she answered it, as though I had asked her the most ordinary question in the world.
“I wish I had,” she said. “That is, I think I wish I had. It is certainly what I ought to do.”
“Then why do you not do it?”
“Ah! why do I not? Why do we not all do just what we ought to do? But why am I to be cross-questioned by you? You would not answer me a question when I asked you the other day.”
“You tell me that you wish you had accepted Mr. Hoskins. Why do you not do so?” said I, continuing my cross-examination.
“Because I have a vain ambition—a foolish ambition—a silly, moth-like ambition—by which, if I indulge it, I shall only burn my wings. Because I am such an utter ass that I would fain make myself an Englishwoman.”
“I don’t see that you need burn your wings!”
“Yes; should I go there I shall find myself to be nobody, whereas here I am in good repute. Here I could make my husband a man of mark by dint of my own power. There I doubt whether even his esteem would so shield and cover me as to make me endurable. Do you think that I do not know the difference; that I am not aware of what makes social excellence there? And yet, though I know it all, and covet it, I despise it. Social distinction with us is given on sounder terms than it is with you, and is more frequently the deserved reward of merit. Tell me; if I go to London they will ask who was my grandfather?”
“Indeed, no; they will not ask even of your father unless you speak of him.”
“No; their manners are too good. But they will speak of their fathers, and how shall I talk with them? Not but what my grandfather was a good man; and you are not to suppose that I am ashamed of him because he stood in a store and sold leather with his own hands. Or rather, I am ashamed of it. I should tell my husband’s old friends and my new acquaintances that it was so because I am not a coward; and yet, as I told them, I should be ashamed. His brother is what you call a baronet.”
“Just so!”
“And what would the baronet’s wife say to me with all my sharp Boston notions? Can’t you see her looking at me over the length of the drawing-room? And can’t you fancy how pert I should be, and what snappish words I should say to the she baronet? Upon the whole, don’t you think I should do better with Mr. Hoskins?”
Again I sat silent for some time. She had now asked me a question to which I was bound to give her a true answer—an answer that should be true as to herself without reference to Pryor. She was sitting back in the sleigh, tamed as it were by her own thoughts, and she had looked at me as though she had really wanted counsel. “If I am to answer you in truth—” I said.
“You are to answer me in truth.”
“Then,” said I, “I can only bid you take him of the two whom you love; that is, if it be the case that you love either.”
“Love!” she said.
“And if it be the case,” I continued, “that you love neither, then leave them both as they are.”
“I am not then to think of the man’s happiness?”
“Certainly not by marrying him without affection.”
“Ah I but I may regret him—with affection.”
“And for which of them do you feel affection?” I asked. And as I asked, we were already within the streets of Boston.
She again remained silent, almost till I had placed her at her own door; then she looked at me with eyes full, not only of meaning, but of love also;—with that in her eyes for which I had not hitherto given her credit.
“You know the two men,” she said, “and do you ask me that?” When these words were spoken, she jumped from the sleigh, and hurried up the steps to
