To look into your heart and feel it beating
against mine as of old; not to pry, curiously, into your ways of
living, nor to compare your house-furnishing with my own. But for
your constant reference to these things, I should not have noticed,
particularly, how your house was attired; and if asked about them,
could only have answered, 'She's living very nicely.' Forgive me for
this plain speech, dear cousin. I did not mean to give utterance to
such language; but the words are spoken now, and cannot be
recalled."
Mrs. Cartwright, if not really offended, was mortified and rebuked
and these states of feeling united with pride, served to give
coldness to her exterior. She tried to be cordial in manner towards
her cousin; to seem as if she had not felt her words; but this was
impossible, for she had felt them too deeply. She saw that the
cherished friend and companion of her girlhood was disappointed in
her; that she had come to look into her heart, and not into the
attiring of her home; and was going away with diminished affection.
After years of divergence, their paths had touched; and, separating
once more, she felt that they would never run parallel again.
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