FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88  
89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   >>   >|  
untry are striving to be unnatural. By the blood----" "John." He wheeled about and looked at her. "But I ask you if it isn't enough to make a saint pull out his hair? Simply opposed her marriage, used legitimate argument, and afterward begged like a dog. Isn't it enough to make me spurn the restraints of the church and take up the language of the mud-clerk?" "No, dear; nothing should prompt you to do that. You have a soul to be saved." "But is it necessary that my life should be tortured out of me in order that my soul may be saved? I don't care to pay such a price. Is it put down that I must be a second Job? Is a boil the sign of salvation?" "For goodness' sake don't talk that way," she pleaded, but she had to turn her face away to hide her smile from him. "But I've got to talk some way. Just reflect on her treatment of me and how I have humbled myself and whined at her feet. And I ask what may we not expect of such a creature? Is it that she wants to be different from anyone else? Let me tell you one thing: The woman who seeks to be strongly individualized may attain her aim, but it leads to a sacrifice of her modesty. I say she is in danger of disgracing herself." Mrs. Cranceford shook her head. "You wait and we shall see. No member of my family was ever disgraced. I may be distressed at her peculiarities, at times, but I shall never be afraid for her conduct." Early the next morning a negro brought a letter from Louise. Mrs. Cranceford hastened to the office to read it to the Major. It appeared to have been written with care and thus was it worded: "My Dear Mother:--I am thankful that I am not to look upon the surprise and sorrow you must feel in reading this letter. I hardly know how to rake together and assort what I desire to say, but I will do the best I can, and if you fail to understand me, do not charge it against yourself, but list it with my other faults. What I have recently gone through with is quite enough to unstring the nerves of a stronger woman than I am, and what must be my condition? Worn out and weary of any life that I could conceive of here--don't you see how I am floundering about? But give me time and in all honesty you shall know the true state of my mind. Many a time father has said that he did not understand me, and more than once you have charged me with being strange. But I am sure that I have never tried to be mysterious. I have had thoughts that would not have appear
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88  
89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Cranceford
 

understand

 

letter

 

office

 

written

 
appeared
 
worded
 

thankful

 
surprise
 

Mother


hastened

 

mysterious

 
peculiarities
 

distressed

 
disgraced
 

thoughts

 
strange
 
brought
 

sorrow

 

charged


morning

 

afraid

 

conduct

 

Louise

 

reading

 

family

 

recently

 

floundering

 

honesty

 

faults


condition

 
stronger
 

unstring

 

conceive

 

assort

 
nerves
 

desire

 
father
 

charge

 
language

restraints
 

church

 
prompt
 
tortured
 

wheeled

 

looked

 
striving
 

unnatural

 
legitimate
 

argument