The Lilac Sunbonnet: A Love StoryCrockett, S. R. (Samuel Rutherford)
General
The Lilac Sunbonnet: A Love Story
Crockett, S. R. (Samuel Rutherford)
Fiction; Love stories
"Then when shall I see you?" said Winsome piteously. It is the cry
of all loving womanhood, whose love goes out to the battle or into
the city, to the business of war, or pleasure, or even of money-
getting. "Then when shall I see you. again?" said Winsome, saying
a new thing. There is nothing new under the sun, yet to lovers
like Winsome and Ralph all things are new.
There was a catch in her throat. A salter dew gathered about her
eyes, and the pupils expanded till the black seemed to shut out
the blue.
Very tenderly Ralph looked down, and said, "Winsome, my dear, very
soon I shall come again with more to ask and more to tell."
"But you are not going straight away to Edinburgh now? You must
get a drive to Dumfries and take the Edinburgh coach."
"I cannot do that," said Ralph; "I must walk all the way; it is
nothing."
Winsome looked at Ralph, the motherly instinct that is in all true
love surging up even above the lover's instinct. It made her clasp
and unclasp her hands in distress, to think of him going away
alone over the waste moors, from the place where they had been so
happy.
"And he will leave me behind!" she said, with a sudden fear of the
loneliness which would surely come when the bright universe was
emptied of Ralph.
"Had it only been to-morrow, I could have borne it better," she
said. "Oh, it is too soon! How could he let us be so happy when he
was going away from me?"
Winsome knew even better than Ralph that he must go, but the most
accurate knowledge of necessity does not prevent the resentful
feeling in a woman's heart when one she loves goes before his
time.
But the latent motherhood in this girl rose up. If he were truly
hers, he was hers to take care of. Therefore she asked the
question which every mother asks, and no sweetheart who is nothing
but a sweetheart has ever yet asked:
"Have you enough money?"
Ralph blushed and looked most unhappy, for the first time since
the sun rose.
"I have none at all," he said; "my father only gave me the money
for my journey to the Dullarg, and Mr. Welsh was to provide me
what was necessary--" He stopped here, it seemed such a hard and
shameful thing to say. "I have never had anything to do with
money," he said, hanging down his head.
Now Winsome, who was exceedingly practical in this matter, went
forward to him quickly and put an arm upon his shoulder.
"My poor boy!" she said, with the tenderest and sweetest
expression on her face. And again Ralph Peden perceived that there
are things more precious than much money.
"Now bend your head and let me whisper." It was already bent, but
it was in his ear that Winsome wished to speak.
"No, no, indeed I cannot, Winsome, my love; I could not, indeed,
and in truth I do not need it."
Winsome dropped her arms and stepped back tragically. She put one
hand over the other upon her breast, and turned half way from him.
"Then you do not love me," she said, purely as a coercive measure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account