Part 54 (1/2)

My head has ached lately until it's a wonder there's a hair left on it.”

So I was pleasing her. I never did handle hair so carefully. I tried every single thing it feels good to you to have done with your hair, rubbed her head gently, and to cheer her up I told her about May and the snake, and what fool Mehitabel had said, and she couldn't help laughing; so I had her feeling about as good as she could, for the way she actually felt, but still I didn't really get ahead. Come right to the place to do it, that was no very easy question to ask a person, when you wouldn't hurt their feelings for anything; I was beginning to wonder if I would lose my chance, when all at once a way I could manage popped into my mind.

”Sh.e.l.ley,” I said, ”they told you about Laddie and the Princess, didn't they?”

I knew they had, but I had to make a beginning some way.

”Yes,” she said. ”I'm glad of it! I think she's pretty as a picture, and nice as she looks. Laddie may have to hump himself to support her, but if he can't get her as fine clothes as she has, her folks can help him. They seem to have plenty, and she's their only child.”

”They're going to. I heard Mr. Pryor ask Laddie if he'd be so unkind as to object to them having the pleasure of giving her things.”

”Well, the greenhorn didn't say he would!”

”No. He didn't want to put his nose to the grindstone quite that close. He said it was between them.”

”I should think so!”

”Sh.e.l.ley, there's a question I've been wanting to ask some one for quite a while.”

”What?”

”Why, this! You know, Laddie was in love with the Princess, like you are when you want to marry folks, for a long, long time, before he could be sure whether she loved him back.”

”Yes.”

”Well, now, 'spose she never had loved him, would he have had anything to be ashamed of?”

”I can't see that he would. Some one must start a courts.h.i.+p, or there would be no marrying, and it's conceded to be the place of the man.

No. He might be disappointed, or dreadfully hurt, but there would be no shame about it.”

”Well, then, suppose she loved him, and wanted to marry him, and he hadn't loved her, or wanted her, would SHE have had anything to be ashamed of?”

”I don't think so! If she was attracted by him, and thought she would like him, she would have a right to go to a certain extent, to find out if he cared for her, and if he didn't, why, she'd just have to give him up. But any sensible girl waits for a man to make the advances, and plenty of them, before she allows herself even to dream of loving him, or at least, I would.”

Now I was getting somewhere!

”Of course you would!” I said. ”That would be the WAY mother would, wouldn't it?”

”Surely!”

”If that Paget man you used to write about had seemed to be just what you liked, you'd have waited to know if he wanted you, before you loved him, wouldn't you?”

”I certainly would!” answered Sh.e.l.ley. ”Or at least, I'd have waited until I THOUGHT sure as death, I knew. It seems that sometimes you can be fooled about those things.”

”But if you thought sure you knew, and then found out you had been mistaken, you wouldn't have anything to be ASHAMED of, would you?”

”Not-on-your-life-I-wouldn't!” cried Sh.e.l.ley, hammering each word into her right knee with her doubled fist. ”What are you driving at, Blatherskite? What have you got into your head?”

”Oh just studying about things,” I said, which was exactly the truth.

”Sally getting married last fall, and Laddie going to this, just started me to wondering.”