Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/174

166 me. There shall be no secrets. I ask you to confess none to me. All I ask is that, as a friend, you will tell me whether there is any chance for me. You are everybody’s friend—do not deprive me alone of your help.help.” [sic]

“Really, I do not know what to say,” Miss Simms whispered, in a voice greatly agitated.

I had all along persevered in my music-copying. I knew that I was making the most astounding blunders, but that was of little consequence. If I left off this accompaniment I felt that my voice would break down, too.

“My dear Miss Simms,” I went on, “I know that your present hesitation proceeds from the best of motives. Do not think I am flattering you, when I say that to your influence I attribute much of the exquisite purity of your charming niece.”

This was not quite true, but I saw that a compliment would be well-timed.

“She is a good child,” said Miss Simms.

“I see,” I continued, “in your present hesitation, precisely that delicacy of decorum which has guarded so constantly the opening leaves of that sweet flower. Ah! what a delightful occupation! To a heart so sensitive as yours, what a labour of love! To watch the birth of new beauties and virtues from day to day—to tend, to foster—to—to—in short—to find, as it were, your own sensibilities reproduced and springing up—like—like objective personifications under your incubative cares.” I was pleased with the sentence, and paused in order that the words might take due effect upon her.

“I, too,” I went on, “have not been blind to this gradual change, to those unfolding beauties. We are old friends, we have known each other many years. You can forgive—nay, you will sympathise with the warmth of my expressions. This gradual growth of love—what a mystery it is! ‘He never loved that loved not at first sight,’ says the poet. What a libel upon human nature, worthy of the gross lips that uttered it! True love is always gradual. The first indifference burgeons into liking, flowers into friendship, fruits into love. We know not where indifference ends and love begins. Ah! my dear Miss Simms, &c &c., &c.”

This sort of thing may be continued ad libitum, through as many pages as my reader pleases. In the heat of my oratory I flung aside my pen, and strode to the fireplace by which Miss Simms was sitting. My oratory must have been moving. Miss Simms was in tears when I next came to a pause.

She lifted her tearful eyes for a moment to mine, as I stood upon the hearth-rug close by her side.

“Oh spare me!” she said. “This tumult of feelings—so painful and yet so delicious! I am but a weak, girlish thing” (she giggled hysterically). “Leave me alone, now. Some other time—some other time. I have been expecting this. I knew it must come.”