Part 5 (2/2)
”Certainly, Alice, certainly.” But his unspoken reflection was, ”women are that short sighted, they cannot put up with a small evil to prevent a big one.”
He had forgotten that ”the wise One” and the ”Counsellor” thought one day's joys and sorrows ”sufficient” for the heart to bear.
CHAPTER IV.
THUS RUNS THE WORLD AWAY.
”But we mortals Planted so lowly, with death to bless us, Sorrow no longer.”
”Our choices are our destiny. Nothing is ours that our choices have not made ours.”
Julius Sandal had precisely those superficial excellences which the world is ready to accept at their apparent value; and he had been in so many schools, and imbibed such a variety of opinions, that he had a mental suit for all occasions. ”He knows about every thing,” said Sandal to the clergyman, at the close of an evening spent together,--an evening in which Julius had been particularly interesting. ”Don't you think so, sir?”
The rector looked up at the starry sky, and around the mountain-girdled valley, and answered slowly, ”He has a great many ideas, squire; but they are second-hand, and do not fit his intellect.”
Charlotte had much the same opinion of the paragon, only she expressed it in a different way. ”He believes in every thing, and he might as well believe in nothing. Confucius and Christ are about the same to him, and he thinks Juggernaut only 'a clumsier spelling of a name which no man spells correctly.'”
”His mind is like a fine mosaic, Charlotte.”
”Oh, indeed, Sophia, I don't think so! Mosaics have a design and fit it.
The mind of Julius is more like that quilt of a thousand pieces which grandmother patched. There they are, the whole thousand, just bits of color, all sizes and shapes. I would rather have a good square of white Ma.r.s.eilles.”
”I don't think you ought to speak in such a way, Charlotte. You can't help seeing how much he admires you.”
There was a tone in Sophia's carefully modulated voice which made Charlotte turn, and look at her sister. She was sitting at her embroidery-frame, and apparently counting the st.i.tches in the rose-leaf she was copying; but Charlotte noticed that her hand trembled, and that she was counting at random. In a moment the veil fell from her eyes: she understood that Sophia was in love with Julius, and fearful of her own influence over him. She had been about to leave the room: she returned to the window, and stood at it a few moments, as if considering the a.s.sertion.
”I should be very sorry if that were the case, Sophia.”
”Why?”
”Because I do not admire Julius in any way. I never could admire him. I don't want to be in debt to him for even one-half hour of sentimental affection.”
”You should let him understand that, Charlotte, if it be so.”
”He must be very dull if he does not understand.”
”When father and you went fis.h.i.+ng yesterday, he went with you.”
”Why did you not come also? We begged you to do so.”
”Because I hate to be hot and untidy, and to get my hands soiled, and my face flushed. That was your condition when you returned home; but all the same, he said you looked like a water-nymph or a wood-nymph.”
”I think very little of him for such talk. There is nothing 'nymphy'
about me. I should hate myself if there were. I am going to write, and ask Harry to get a furlough for a few weeks. I want to talk sensibly to some one. I am tired of being on the heights or in the depths all the time; and as for poetry, I wish I might never hear words that rhyme again. I've got to feel that way about it, that if I open a book, and see the lines begin with capitals, my first impulse is to tear it to pieces. There, now, you have my opinions, Sophia!”
<script>