Page:The Poor Rich Man, and the Rich Poor Man.djvu/75

Rh scarcely less happy than Susan. Early in the evening Charlotte went to her own room. Uncle Phil made it a rule to go to bed when the fowls went to roost; (there was no faint resemblance in their degree of intellectual life), and Susan was left in possession of their little sitting-room to pour out her overflowing heart in a letter to Harry. It was a letter befitting the frank and feeling creature who wrote it; and such a letter as any lover would be enraptured to receive. When she went to her room, Charlotte was not in bed, but just rising from her knees; she smiled as she turned towards Susan, and Susan saw that her cheeks were wet with tears.

"Why, what's the matter, Lottie?" she asked.

"I have been trying, Susy, to get courage to look into the future." Her voice faltered as she added, "The time is coming when we must separate."

"Oh, Lottie, I never thought of that! how could I be so selfish!" All the castles she had been building in the air fell at once to the ground. Her first impulse was to say—" No, I will never leave you, Lottie."

But she had just written a promise to Harry to. be his; and she was silent, and quite as sorrowful as Charlotte at the conviction that, for the first time in their lives, their interests were divided. Hour after hour she was restless and thoughtful; at last she came to a conclusion, sad enough in some of its aspects, but it tranquillized her. She nestled up to her sister, put her arm over her, and fell asleep, repeating to herself, "It's a comfort, any how, to resolve to do right." Well may reflection be called an angel, when it suggest duties, and