"I knew I could love no one else, Therese-Hermine, or Hermine-Therese! I
knew there must be some good and sufficient reason for the unaccountable
attraction my neighbor was exercising over me. Why didn't you tell me
sooner, _mechante_? I suppose you never would have done so at all, if we
had not come out here to-day. Suppose I had not asked you to come with
me?"
"Wouldn't you have asked me?" she answered, with so much winning grace
and in such a pleading tone that I found myself obliged to repeat the
operation of a few lines above. "Wouldn't you have asked me? I don't
know what I should have done," she continued, sadly and thoughtfully.
"Oh, yes!" she exclaimed, jumping up and clapping her hands, while her
whole face was radiant with triumph. "Oh, yes! then I should have been
Hermine, and you would have asked her."
Two happier young people than Therese and myself never, I am confident,
returned by rail from a day's excursion in the country. Our happy faces,
our rapid talking, and our devotion to each other, which we took no
pains to conceal, attracted the attention of all about us,--and I heard
one father of a family, who was returning to Paris with a half score of
cross, tired, and crying children, whisper to his wife, as he pointed
towards us,--"That is a couple in their honey-moon, or else lovers; how
happy they are!"
And that is the way in which I stumbled into wedlock.
Pages:
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114