Something that felt like the
happy life I had never led yet, leapt up in me at the instant I set eyes
on you. Don't laugh at this if you can help it. Oh, if I could only make
you feel how serious it is to ME!
"I went back to the house, and wrote your name and mine in my work-box,
and drew a true lovers' knot under them. Then, some devil--no, I ought
to say some good angel--whispered to me, 'Go and look in the glass.' The
glass told me--never mind what. I was too foolish to take the warning.
I went on getting fonder and fonder of you, just as if I was a lady in
your own rank of life, and the most beautiful creature your eyes ever
rested on. I tried--oh, dear, how I tried--to get you to look at me.
If you had known how I used to cry at night with the misery and the
mortification of your never taking any notice of me, you would have
pitied me perhaps, and have given me a look now and then to live on.
"It would have been no very kind look, perhaps, if you had known how
I hated Miss Rachel. I believe I found out you were in love with her,
before you knew it yourself. She used to give you roses to wear in your
button-hole. Ah, Mr. Franklin, you wore my roses oftener than either you
or she thought! The only comfort I had at that time, was putting my rose
secretly in your glass of water, in place of hers--and then throwing her
rose away.
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