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1Author:  Holmes Mary Jane 1825-1907Add
 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.'
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