English fiction -- 19th century; Tailors -- Fiction
Evan blushed, for it had been a struggle for him to receive them, as he
thought, from Rose in secret. The flowers lost their value; the song
that had arisen out of them, 'Thou livest in my memory,' ceased. But
they came still. How many degrees from love gratitude may be, I have not
reckoned. I rather fear it lies on the opposite shore. From a youth to
a girl, it may yet be very tender; the more so, because their ages
commonly exclude such a sentiment, and nature seems willing to make a
transition stage of it. Evan wrote to Juliana. Incidentally he
expressed a wish to see her. Juliana was under doctor's interdict: but
she was not to be prevented from going when Evan wished her to go. They
met in the park, as before, and he talked to her five minutes through the
carriage window.
'Was it worth the risk, my poor child?' said Caroline, pityingly.
Juliana cried: 'Oh! I would give anything to live!'
A man might have thought that she made no direct answer.
'Don't you think I am patient? Don't you think I am very patient?'she
asked Caroline, winningly, on their way home.
Caroline could scarcely forbear from smiling at the feverish anxiety she
showed for a reply that should confirm her words and hopes.
'So we must all be!'she said, tend that common-place remark caused
Juliana to exclaim: 'Prisoners have lived in a dungeon, on bread and
water, for years!'
Whereat Caroline kissed her so tenderly that Juliana tried to look
surprised, and failing, her thin lips quivered; she breathed a soft
'hush,' and fell on Caroline's bosom.
She was transparent enough in one thing; but the flame which burned
within her did not light her through.
Others, on other matters, were quite as transparent to her.
Caroline never knew that she had as much as told her the moral suicide
Evan had committed at Beckley; so cunningly had she been probed at
intervals with little casual questions; random interjections, that one
who loved him could not fail to meet; petty doubts requiring
elucidations. And the Countess, kind as her sentiments had grown toward
the afflicted creature, was compelled to proclaim her densely stupid in
material affairs. For the Countess had an itch of the simplest feminine
curiosity to know whether the dear child had any notion of accomplishing
a certain holy duty of the perishable on this earth, who might possess
worldly goods; and no hints--not even plain speaking, would do. Juliana
did not understand her at all.
The Countess exhibited a mourning-ring on her finger, Mrs. Bonner's
bequest to her.
'How fervent is my gratitude to my excellent departed friend for this!
A legacy, however trifling, embalms our dear lost ones in the memory!'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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