Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/280

 other people may do to you or say to you, I am always here for you to turn to. . .” I cannot go on. . . Already I have said more than I ought. Will you think your old friend very foolish if she confesses that for a moment she forgot that she was old ? Time slipped from my shoulders, and I saw once again a young girl in that very garden, not a hundred yards from where I was standing. . . Dear Phyllida, I suppose, would think her a very funny, old-fashioned creature, but I did not seem so then—certainly to Arthur. . . A young girl in a white dress with a young man pleading at her feet until his voice broke and he said: “It’s no good, I can’t go on.” And then he threw his arms about me. . . And I remember my dear father coming on to the terrace and calling out to me. And Arthur seized my hand and strode forward with his head among the stars. . . Brackenbury—he is fourteen years my junior—was already in bed, but we insisted on going upstairs to tell him the news. Life was a very glorious thing that night. I walked on air; and, if any one had told me that it was a thing of greed and cruelty and ingratitude and mean passions, I should have laughed him to scorn. . . Forgive me. ..

I am sentimental, no doubt, but if we have the opportunity of feeling our heart