Lane called me to come and help move Emily. I very often lifted her from
the chair to the sofa. It could hardly be called lifting. 'Twas like
taking a little bird out of its nest and placing it in another. "The
Doctor's boy has come," said I, very quietly, when I had wheeled the
sofa so that she might feel the air from the window.
She made no answer then; but a little after, when her mother stepped out
a minute, she said, just as quietly,--
"How will it be?"
"How do you think?" I said.
"I wish," she replied, "that he hadn't come. David is a dear brother. I
fear."
When Emily said "I fear," there was no need to ask what. She feared the
effect upon Warren Luce of Mary Ellen's fresh and simple beauty. She
feared the effect upon her of his city-manners and fluent speech. She
feared for David an abiding sorrow. Warren Luce had travelled, had been
in society, and had been educated. I knew him well for a selfish,
heartless fellow, whose very soul had been drowned in worldly pleasures.
Just from the midst of artificial life, how charming must appear to him
our sweet wild-rose, our singing-bird, our fresh, untutored, innocent
little country-girl!
"But why borrow trouble?" I said to myself.
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