So it happened one day that he wanted a particular coat which had been put
away in her clothes-closet--and she was on her knees between him and it,
with the time of her Amen quite indefinite. I was sent, said my errand
briefly, and was permitted to fumble out her keys from her pocket while
she continued to kneel over her morning psalms.
What I brought to him turned out to be the wrong coat: I went back and
knocked for readmittance. Long-sufferingly she bade me to come in. I
explained, and still she repressed herself, only saying in a tone of
affliction, "Do see this time that you take the right one!"
After I had made my second selection, and proved it right on my uncle's
person, the parallelism of things struck me, and I skipped back to my
aunt's door and tapped. I got a low wailing "Yes?" for answer--a
monosyllabic substitute for the "How long, O Lord?" of a saint in
difficulties. When I called through the keyhole, "Are your psalms
written in gold?" she became really angry:--I suppose because the
miracle so well earned had not come to pass.
Well, dearest, if you have been patient with me over so much about
nothing, I pray this letter may appear to you written in gold. Why I
write so is, partly, that, it is bad for us both to be down in the
mouth, or with hearts down at heel: and so, since you cannot, I have to
do the dancing;--and, partly, because I found I had a bad temper on me
which needed curing, and being brought to the sun-go-down point of owing
no man anything.
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