Page:The Galaxy, Volume 6.djvu/221

1868.] "Indeed she did, Eve; and what is more, your father replied, placidly, 'Very well, Friend Priscilla, nothing could please me better!

"Now tell me," cried I, hotly, "who is Priscilla Mott?"

"Priscilla Mott was a prim little Quakeress; and your father ought to have married her, for he promised to."

"My father!"

"Yes, your father; but he taught school among the world's people at Milton, and there he saw Helen Raymond, and she taught him what love is!"

Cousin Sophia sighed at this juncture. She had met with a "disappointment" in her youth.

"Cousin Sophia, I cannot credit the story! My father always speaks of love as a 'figment of the brain.

"It is often so with elderly men, dear; but they know better all the time. Priscilla Mott—I forget her maiden name—was nearly broken-hearted. Not that she died on the spot—women seldom do, Eve; she's alive now, and her husband, too, for she hadn't the strength of mind to remain single. She married a shiftless, do-nothing sort of man, and your father feels as if he couldn't do too much for the family; he has helped educate Adam."

"Oh! Sophia, thee cuts me to the heart. To think that my father, the soul of honor, should have broken his word."

"Child, what do you know of these matters? You should not have urged me to tell the story. I don't know what your father would say. Don't breathe it to him for the world!"

I made no reply. I was thinking of Abraham and Isaac. When Abraham was commanded to offer up his little son, did he flinch? If father thought it a duty to sacrifice me, would he hesitate?

My eyes were opened, now, and I saw which way the straws were blowing. Adam was half the time musing in a corner, with those handsome, opaque eyes fixed on me. But when at last the declaration came, I was not exactly prepared for it. For the quiet Adam to speak in such an impassioned manner, was a marvel. It moved me; but whether my heart was touched, I could not tell. He said he would try to wait with patience for my answer. It seemed to me he would have to wait till doomsday.

I sat in my room half that afternoon thridding my fingers through my hair, wondering how girls did make up their minds? By comparison, probably. For instance, did I like Adam better than Solomon Potter? O, certainly, he knew a great deal more. Better than Dr. Hathaway? Why, Dr. Hathaway wasn't to be taken into the account; he was not a suitor like Solomon and Job, and though an excellent man, must he at least thirty-five years old! If I lived in that wide and dangerous place called "the world," should I be likely to meet people more agreeable than old bachelors and "preaching friends?" But this question did not bear upon the subject. My lot was cast among Quakers.

Miriam Grant came in that evening, and I longed to open my heart to her, but she was not a girl to respect one's confidence, though such a pretty, winsome creature, that I loved to watch her. Adam seemed to find her entertaining. She was not overawed by him as I was. Why had'nt he fancied her instead of me, and saved me all this trouble of making up my mind?

Presently Dr. Hathaway, who boarded at Friend Grant's, came to walk home with Miriam. He talked to me, but I scarcely listened. I was thinking how I longed to ask father if he really wished me to cancel his debt to the mother by