第13章

I showed my mother the letters.She burst into tears and opened her arms, and I ran into them as a wounded bird flies into the ark.We cried together.Mother never said, never looked, "I told you so."All she did say was this, "God has heard my prayers! He is reserving better things for my child!"Dear mother's are not the only arms I have flown to.But it does not seem as if God ought to take me in because I am in trouble, when Iwould not go to him when I was happy in something else.But even in the midst of my greatest felicity I had many and many a misgiving;many a season when my conscience upbraided me for my willfulness towards my dear mother, and my whole soul yearned for something higher and better even than Charley's love, precious as it was.

Jan.26.-I have shut myself up in my room to-day to think over things.The end of it is that I am full of mortification and confusion of face.If I had only had confidence in mother's judgment I should never have get entangled in this silly engagement.I see now that Charley never could have made me happy, and I know there is a good deal in my heart he never called out.I wish, however, I had not written him when I was in passion.No wonder he is thankful that he free from such a vixen.But, oh the provocation was terrible!

I have made up my mind never to tell a human soul about this affair.

It will be so high- minded and honorable to shield him thus from the contempt he deserves.With all my faults I am glad that there is nothing mean or little about me!

Jan.27.-I can't bear to write it down, but I will.The ink was hardly dry yesterday on the above self-laudation when Amelia came.

She had been out of town, and had only just learned what had happened.Of course she was curious to know the whole story.

And I told it to her, every word of it! Oh, Kate Mortimer, how "high-minded" you are! How free from all that is "mean and little"! Icould tear my hair if it would do any good?

Amelia defended Charley, and I was thus led on to say every harsh thing of him I could think of.She said he was of so sensitive a nature, had so much sensibility, and such a constitutional aversion to seeing suffering, that for her part she could not blame him.

"It is such a pity you had not had your lungs examined before you wrote that first letter, she went on."But you are so impulsive! If you had only waited you would be engaged to Charley still!""I am thankful I did not wait," I cried, angrily."Do, Amelia, drop the subject forever.You and I shall never agree upon it.The truth is, you are two-thirds in love with him, and have been, all along."She colored, and laughed, and actually looked pleased.If anyone had made such an outrageous speech to me I should have been furious.

"I suppose you know," said she, "that old Mr.Underhill has taken such a fancy to him that he has made him his heir; and he is as rich as a Jew.""Indeed!" I said, dryly.

I wonder if mother knew it when she opposed our engagement so strenuously.

Jan.31.-1 have asked her, and she said she did.Mr.Underhill told her his intentions when he urged her consent to the engagement.Dear mother! How unworldly, how unselfish she is!

Feb.4.-The name of Charley Underhill appears on these pages for the last time.He is engaged to Amelia! From this moment she is lost to me forever.How desolate, how mortified, how miserable I am! Who could have thought this of Amelia! She came to see me, radiant with joy.I concealed my disgust until she said that Charley felt now that he had never really loved me, but had preferred her all along.Then Iburst out.What I said I do not know, and do not care.The whole thing is so disgraceful that I should be a stock or a stone not to resent it.

Feb.5.-After yesterday's passion of grief, shame, and anger, I feel perfectly stupid and.languid.Oh, that I was prepared for a better world, and could fly to it and be at rest!

Feb.6.-Now that it is all over, how ashamed I am of the fury I have been in, and which has given Amelia such advantage over me! I was beginning to believe that I was really living a feeble and fluttering, but real Christian life, and finding some satisfaction in it.But that is all over now.I am doomed to be a victim of my own unstable, passionate, wayward nature, and the sooner I settle down into that conviction, the better.And yet how my very soul craves the highest happiness, and refuses to be comforted while that is wanting.

Feb.7.-After writing that, I do not know what made me go to see Dr.

Cabot.He received me in that cheerful way of his that seems to promise the taking one's burden right off one's back.

"I am very glad to see you, my dear child," he said.

I intended to be very dignified and cold.As if I was going to have any Dr.Cabot's undertaking to sympathize with me! But those few kind words just upset me, and I began to cry.

"You would not speak so kindly," I got out at last, "if you knew what a dreadful creature I am.I am angry with myself, and angry with everybody, and angry with God.I can't be good two minutes at a time.

I do everything I do not want to do, and do nothing I try and pray to do.Everybody plagues me and tempts me.And God does not answer any of my prayers, and I am just desperate.""Poor child!" he said, in a low voice, as if to himself."Poor, heart-sick, tired child, that cannot see what I can see, that its Father's loving arms are all about it?"I stopped crying, to strain my ears and listen.He went on.