There was another pause, and then Effie said, clasping more closely her uncle’s arm, “But it would be soon enough in a year or two--after there was time to think. Why should there be a hurry? After I am twenty I would have more sense; it would not be so hard. I could understand better. Surely that’s very reasonable, Uncle John.”
“Too reasonable,” he said, shaking his head. “Effie, lift up your eyes and look me in the face. Are you sure that you are happy, my little woman? Look me in the face.”
“No, Beenie,” said Miss Dempster solemnly, “her heart is not in it. Do you think it is possible at her age that a young creature could resist all the excitement and the importance, and the wedding presents and the wedding clothes? It was bad enough in our own time, but it’s just twice as bad now when every mortal thinks it needful to give their present, and boxes are coming in every day for months. That’s a terrible bad custom: it’s no better than the penny weddings the poor people used to have. But to think a young thing would be quite indifferent to all that, if everything was natural, is more than I can understand.”
“That’s very true,” said Miss Beenie, “and all her new things. If it was nothing but the collars and fichus that are so pretty nowadays, and all the new pocket-handkerchiefs.”
“It’s not natural,” the elder sister said.
“And if you will remember, there was a wonderful look about the little thing’s eyes when Ronald went away. To be sure there was Eric with him. She was really a little thing then, though now she’s grown up. You may depend upon it that though maybe she may not be conscious of it herself, there is another Eemage in her poor bit little heart.”
“Ye are too sentimental, Beenie. That’s not necessary. There may be a shrinking without that. I know no harm of young Dirom. He’s not one that would ever take my fancy, but still there’s no harm in him. The stepmother is just ridiculous. She thinks it’s her that’s getting the elevation. There will never be a word out of her mouth but Allonby if this comes to pass. But the heart of the little thing is not in it. She was angry; that was what her colour came from. It was no blush, yon; it was out of an angry and an unwilling mind. I have not lived to my present considerable age without knowing what a girl’s looks mean.”