Page:Tales of Three Cities (Boston, James R. Osgood & Co., 1884).djvu/256

244 "Did n't you promise, dear?"

"I don't know that I promised; not absolutely."

"But you would n't keep her here against her will?" said Mrs. Lemon, inconsequently.

"I guess she 'll get used to it," Jackson answered, with a lightness he did not altogether feel.

Mrs. Lemon looked up and down the street again, and gave a little sigh. "What a pity she is n't American!" She did not mean this as a reproach, a hint of what might have been; it was simply embarrassment resolved into speech.

"She could n't have been American," said Jackson, with decision.

"Could n't she, dear?" Mrs. Lemon spoke with a kind of respect; she felt that there were imperceptible reasons in this.

"It was just as she is that I wanted her," Jackson added.

"Even if she won't come back?" his mother asked, with a certain wonder.

"Oh, she has got to come back!" Jackson said, going down the steps.

 VI.

, after this, did not decline to see her New York acquaintances on Sunday afternoons, though she refused for the present to enter into a project of her husband's, who thought it would be a pleasant thing that she should entertain his friends on the