couldn't have a good temper, with those scowling eyebrows: this was the
opinion of several broad-faced, smiling girls, who thought, each in her
own snug little mental sanctum, that, if, etc., etc., she could make him
so happy!
Elsie had none of the still, wicked light in her eyes, that morning. She
looked gentle, but dreamy; played with her books; did not trouble herself
with any of the exercises,--which in itself was not very remarkable, as
she was always allowed, under some pretext or other, to have her own way.
The school-hours were over at length. The girls went out, but she
lingered to the last. She then came up to Mr. Bernard, with a book in
her hand, as if to ask a question.
"Will you walk towards my home with me today?" she said, in a very low
voice, little more than a whisper.
Mr. Bernard was startled by the request, put in such a way. He had a
presentiment of some painful scene or other. But there was nothing to be
done but to assure her that it would give him great pleasure.
So they walked along together on their way toward the Dudley mansion.
"I have no friend," Elsie said, all at once. "Nothing loves me but one
old woman. I cannot love anybody. They tell me there is something in my
eyes that draws people to me and makes them faint: Look into them, will
you?"
She turned her face toward him. It was very pale, and the diamond eyes
were glittering with a film, such as beneath other lids would have
rounded into a tear.
"Beautiful eyes, Elsie," he said,--"sometimes very piercing,--but soft
now, and looking as if there were something beneath them that friendship
might draw out. I am your friend, Elsie. Tell me what I can do to
render your life happier."
"Love me!" said Elsie Venner.
What shall a man do, when a woman makes such a demand, involving such an
avowal? It was the tenderest, cruellest, humblest moment of Mr.
Bernard's life. He turned pale, he trembled almost, as if he had been a
woman listening to her lover's declaration.
"Elsie," he said, presently, "I so long to be of some use to you, to have
your confidence and sympathy, that I must not let you say or do anything
to put us in false relations. I do love you, Elsie, as a suffering
sister with sorrows of her own,--as one whom I would save at the risk of
my happiness and life,--as one who needs a true friend more than--any of
all the young girls I have known. More than this you would not ask me to
say. You have been t
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