| | 1 | Author: | Holmes
Mary Jane
1825-1907 | Add | | | Title: | Tempest and sunshine  | | | | Published: | 2003 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | It was the afternoon of a bright October day. The old town
clock had just tolled the hour of four, when the Lexington
and Frankfort daily stage was heard rattling over the stony
pavement in the small town of V—, Ky. In a few
moments the four panting steeds were reined up before the
door of the Eagle, the principal hotel in the place. “Mine
host,” a middle-aged, pleasant-looking man, came bustling
out to inspect the new comers, and calculate how many
would do justice to his beefsteaks, strong coffee, sweet potatoes,
and corn cakes, which were being prepared in the
kitchen by Aunt Esther.*
* Pronounced “Easter.”
“Sir—“Upon further reflection, I think it proper to decline
your polite invitation for to-night. “Sir:—When I became engaged to you I was very
young, and am still so; consequently, you will hardly be
surprised, when you learn that I have changed my mind, and
wish to have our engagement dissolved. “—Can it be that you are sick? I do not wish to
think so; and yet what else can prevent your writing? I
have not a thought that you are forgetful of me, for you are
too pure, too innocent, to play me false. And yet I am
sometimes haunted by a vague fear that all is not right, for
a dark shadow seems resting over me. One line from you,
dearest Fanny, will fill my heart with sunshine again—” “I hardly know how to write what I wish
to tell you. If I knew exactly your opinion concerning me,
I might feel differently. As it is, I ardently hope that your
extreme youth prevented my foolish, but then sincere attentions,
from making any very lasting impression on you. But
why not come to the point at once? Fanny, you must try
and forget that you ever knew one so wholly unworthy of
you as I am. It gives me great pain to write it, but I am
about to engage myself to another. “Sir:—Have you, during some weeks past, ever
wondered why I did not write to you? And in enumerating
to yourself the many reasons which could prevent my writting,
has it ever occurred to you, that possibly I might be
false? Can you forgive me, Dr. Lacey, when I tell you that
the love I once fancied I bore you, has wholly subsided, and
I now feel for you a friendship, which I trust will be more
lasting than my transient, girlish love. “Why, in the name of all the Woodburns
and Camerous that ever were or ever will be, didn't
you tell me what kind of mussy, fussy, twisted up things both
Mrs. Cameron Senior, and Mrs. Cameron Senior's daughter,
are. Why, the very first evening of our arrival, Mrs. Senior
met me on the steps, and hugged me so hard that I really
thought she was opposed to the match, and meant to kill
me at once. In her zeal she actually kissed off both veil
and bonnet, and as the latter disappeared, and she got a
view of my face, on which the dust and cinders were an inch
thick, she exclaimed, `Oh, bootiful, bootiful! Why, Frank,
half hasn't been told me.' | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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