Volume Ii Part 13 (1/2)
Would you like to take this letter to your room and ponder over it alone?” No answer came but a low, half-subdued sigh.
”If you do not wish to make a confidante of me, Josephine, I am sorry for it, but not offended.”
”No, no, aunt, it is not that,” burst she in; ”it is to _you_ and you alone, I wish to speak, and I will be as candid as yourself. I am not surprised at the contents of this letter. I mean, I was in a measure prepared for them.”
”That is to say, child, that he paid you certain attentions?”
She nodded a.s.sent.
”And how did you receive them? Did you let him understand that you were not indifferent to him,--that his addresses were agreeable to you?”
Another, but shorter, nod replied to this question.
”I must confess,” said the old lady, bridling up, ”all this amazes me greatly. Why, child, it is but the other day you met each other for the first time. How, when, and where you found time for such relations as you speak of, I cannot imagine. Do you mean to tell me, Josephine, that you ever talked alone together?”
”Constantly, aunt!”
”Constantly!”
”Yes, aunt. We talked a great deal together.”
”But how, child,--where?”
”Here, aunt, as we used to stroll together every morning through the wood or in the garden; then as we went on the river or to the waterfall.”
”I can comprehend nothing of all this, Josephine. I know you mean to deal openly with me; so say at once, how did this intimacy begin?”
”I can scarcely say how, aunt, because I believe we drifted into it. We used to talk a great deal of ourselves, and at length we grew to talk of each other,--of our likings and dislikings, our tastes and our tempers.
And these did not always agree!”
”Indeed!”
”No, aunt,” said she, with a heavy sigh. ”We quarrelled very often; and once,--I shall not easily forget it,--once seriously.”
”What was it about?”
”It was about India, aunt; and he was in the wrong, and had to own it afterwards and ask pardon.”
”He must know much more of that country than you, child. How came it that you presumed to set up your opinion against his?”
”The presumption was his,” said she, haughtily. ”He spoke of _his_ father's position as something the same as _my_ father's. He talked of him as a Rajah!”
”I did not know that he spoke of his father,” said Miss Dinah, thoughtfully.
”Oh, he spoke much of him. He told me, amongst other things, how he had been a dear friend of papa's; that as young men they lived together like brothers, and never were separate till the fortune of life divided them.”
”What is all this I am listening to? Of whom are you telling me, Josephine?”
”Of Fred, Aunt Dinah; of Fred, of course.”
”Do you mean young Conyers, child?”