The next morning Kittie turned to Mabel with a look on her face which
Mabel had never seen there before. It was grim and determined. She said
she had a plan and wanted Mabel to help her, and not ask any questions,
but get her skates and come out. Mabel did, and they went straight to
George Morgan's house, which was only a few blocks away. He was very
rich and had a beautiful house. An English butler came to the door.
Mabel said she was so frightened her teeth chattered, but he smiled when
he saw Kittie, and said yes, Mr. Morgan was home and at breakfast, and
invited them in. When George came in he had a smoking-jacket on, and
looked very pale and sad and romantic, Mabel thought, but he smiled,
too, when he saw them, and shook hands and asked them if they had
breakfasted.
Kittie said yes, but they had come to ask him to take them skating, and
they were all ready and had brought their skates. His face fell, as real
writers say, and he hesitated a little, but at last he said he'd go, and
he excused himself, just as if they had been grown up, and went off to
get ready.
When they were left alone a terrible doubt assailed Mabel, and she asked
Kittie if she was going to ask George again to marry her. Kittie
blushed and said she was not, of course, and that she knew better now.
For it is indeed true that the human heart is not so easily turned from
its dear object. We know that if once one truly loves it lasts forever
and ever and ever, and then one dies and is buried with things the loved
one wore.
Kittie said she had a plan to help George, and all Mabel had to do was
to watch and keep on breathing. Mabel felt better then, and said she
guessed she could do that. George came back all ready, and they started
off. Kittie acted rather dark and mysterious, but Mabel conversed with
George in the easy and pleasant fashion young men love. She told him all
about school and how bad she was in mathematics; and he said he had been
a duffer at it too, but that he had learned to shun it while there was
yet time. And he advised her very earnestly to have nothing to do with
it. Mabel didn't, either, after she came back to St. Catharine's; and
when Sister Irmingarde reproached her, Mabel said she was leaning on the
judgment of a strong man, as woman should do. But Sister Irmingarde made
her go on with the arithmetic just the same.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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