The Last of the Mortimers: A Story in Two VoicesOliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
General
The Last of the Mortimers: A Story in Two Voices
Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
Fiction
Contrairy indeed! I should think so! I wonder how that poor
old Bob Cresswell can put up with his life. If she were mine I would
send her off to school, for all so accomplished as they say she is.
CHAPTER X.
I had not a very good night after these troubles: somehow one’s sleep
goes from one more easily when one grows old; and I kept dreaming all
the night through of my sister and little Sara, and something they were
concealing from me, mixing them both up together in my mind. I rose very
uneasy and excited, not a bit refreshed, as one should feel in the
morning. One thing very strange I have noticed all my life in dreams.
Though never a single _thing_ that one dreams should ever come true,
the feeling one has comes true somehow. I don’t know whether anybody
will understand me. I have had friends in my young days, whom I thought
a great deal upon, that did not prove true to me. And I have remarked,
often long before I found them out, however fond or trustful in them I
was through the day, I was always uneasy in my dreams, always finding
out something wrong or meeting some unkindness--which makes me have a
great confidence, not in what you would call _dreams_, you know, but in
the sentiment of dreams, if you can understand what I mean. I woke up
very unrefreshed, as I say; and got dressed and came downstairs as soon
as it was daylight, though I knew well enough I should find nobody
there. My sister always breakfasted in her own room, and Sara was late
of coming down at the best of times; however, I got some letters about
business, which were perhaps the best things I could have had. They put
me off minding my quarrel with little Sara, or trying to find out what
had kept Sarah so late on her drive.
I had nearly finished breakfast when little Sara came downstairs. She
came up to me just as she had done the night before, holding out her
hand and stooping down her cheek to be kissed, but not looking at me. I
kissed her, the provoking puss, and poured out her coffee. And after ten
minutes or so we got on chatting just as usual, which was a relief to
me, for I don’t like apologies and explanations. I never could bear
them. Little Sara, after she had got over feeling a little awkward and
stiff, as people always do when they have been wrong, was just in her
ordinary. She was used to affront people and to have them come to again,
the little wicked creature--I am afraid she did not mind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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