And this, alas! was only too often, for
he was the brother of one of our storekeepers, a visitor in Owosso,
and often in the store where we girls went. Why the teachers did
not notice how often we needed things there, I do not know. But
they did not, and matters went on and -
"I can not write of those days, and you do not want to hear about
them. They seem impossible to me now, and almost as if it had all
happened to some one else, so completely have I forgotten the man
except as the source and cause of an immeasurable horror. Yet he
was not bad himself; only ordinary and humdrum. Indeed, I believe
he was very good in ways, or so his brother once assured me. We
would not have been married in the way we were if he had not wanted
to go to the Klondike for the purpose of making money and making
it quickly, so that his means might match mine.
"I do not know which of us two was most to blame for that marriage.
He urged it because he was going so far away and wanted to be sure
of me. I accepted it because it seemed to be romantic and because
it pleased me to have my own way in spite of my hard old guardian
and the teachers, who were always prying about, and the girls, who
went silly over him - for he was really handsome in his way - and
who thought, (at least many of them did,) that he cared for them
when he cared only for me.
Pages:
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346