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358 getting so ill-tempered and envious and wicked, I don't know what will happen to me."

"I'm not afraid for you, my dear, and I do believe things will go right, because you are so good to every one. How Tom could help adoring you I don't see. I know he would if he had stayed at home longer after he got rid of Trix. It would be the making of him; but though he is my brother, I don't think he's good enough for you, Polly, and I don't quite see how you can care for him so much, when you might have had a person so infinitely superior."

"I don't want a 'superior' person; he'd tire me if he was like A. S. Besides, I do think Tom is superior to him in many things. Well, you needn't stare; I know he is, or will be. He's so different, and very young, and has lots of faults, I know, but I like him all the better for it, and he's honest and brave, and has got a big, warm heart, and I'd rather have him care for me than the wisest, best, most accomplished man in the world, simply because I love him!"

If Tom could only have seen Polly's face when she said that! It was so tender, earnest, and defiant, that Fanny forgot the defence of her own lover, in admiration of Polly's loyalty to hers; for this faithful, all-absorbing love was a new revelation to Fanny, who was used to hearing her friends boast of two or three lovers a year, and calculate their respective values, with almost as much coolness as the young men discussed the fortunes of the girls they wished, but "could not afford to marry." She had thought her love for Sydney very romantic, because she did not really care whether he was rich or poor, though