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304 my cheeks hard with a towel, and now I look no worse than any other country miss, who is not used to racketing, and who stood up for her first real ball, and danced twenty-one dances over-night.

"And now," I say to myself, as I go down the broad stairs—

"I dare say George would say my heart was false."

in the garden I am pacing up and down, up and down through the silver bars and the dark shadows, backwards and forwards as for a wager, trying to trample out the aching pain in my heart, as many a man and woman has tried before me and will try after me, in vain. And only a week ago at this hour I was so happy, so happy! And by this day twelve months I shall, perhaps, have got rid of this ugly ache, and be moderately happy again, but, oh! I never knew the prospect of a cheerful to-morrow bring any comfort to a chilly to-day; it is the present hour that we hold fast between our hands that is our care. It is a pleasant thing, is it not, to find that your heart has slipped away out of your safe keeping, and knocked at the wrong door, and that your affections have set in a broad, liberal stream towards a man who wants none of them, who has even been at the pains to tell you he is in love with somebody else? My cheeks burn, my foot presses deep into the grass, as I wither under the shameful thought; taking all due blame to myself, has he not been somewhat in fault, did he not mislead me by his looks and words? Bah! it was all my own