“Be sure to write immediately, for I am as unhappy as I can be. And be sure to tell me what he says and how he takes it. Mary Sherwood wrote me that Sue told her that she and Dr. Lake had awful quarrels, and that once they didn’t speak to each other for three days only in her father’s presence. I never could quarrel with John. There he comes. I’ll be writing when he comes in and not look up, and then he will come behind my chair and touch my curls when auntie isn’t looking.
“P.S.—John calls me Di: he doesn’t like _Dine_.”
Crumbling the letter in both hands, she laid it upon the coals; then she stood with one foot on the fender, leaning forward with her forehead upon the mantel, thinking, thinking. Before she was aware the door was opened and some one came behind her and put both arms around her.
“Oh, no,” shaking herself loose from his arms and creeping out of them.
He pushed the ottoman nearer and seated himself upon the parrot and the roses; she stood on the edge of the rug, with her arms folded across her breast to keep herself quiet; how could she tell him the truth? He was not a boy to laugh and cry and fling it off; he had loved Dine as long as Felix Harrison had loved _her_! He would take it quietly enough; she had no dread of an outburst; it might be that Dine’s silence in regard to his letter had been a preparation; surely every hard thing that came had its preparation; the heavy blow was never sent before the word of warning.
“Sick!” She lingered over the word as if help would come before it were ended. “Oh, no, she is well and happy.”
“It isn’t a phenomenon; it is something as old as Eve and as new as Dinah. She thinks she has found her Adam.”
She saw nothing but the fire; the long poker was laid across the fender, a handful of ashes had fallen through the grate. “Such things have to come, like the measles and mumps; I did hope, however, to keep her out of the contagion. But Mother Nature is wiser than any sister.”
“Because—oh, because, I have learned that one’s eyes are always wide open afterward—they weep much and see clear; one can never be carelessly happy again; I wanted her to stay a little girl. Selfishly, perhaps. I thought there was time enough.”
“Nothing is settled, but that two people are in love, or believe themselves to be. Am I not a cynical elder sister?”