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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Agnes had so often sat beside me at my books. Nobody came near me until late at night. I took up a book, and tried to read. I heard the clocks strike twelve, and was still reading, without knowing what I read, when Agnes touched me. 'You will be going early in the morning, Trotwood! Let us say good-bye, now!' She had been weeping, but her face then was so calm and beautiful! 'Heaven bless you!' she said, giving me her hand. 'Dearest Agnes!' I returned, 'I see you ask me not to speak of tonight - but is there nothing to be done?' 'There is God to trust in!' she replied. 'Can I do nothing-I, who come to you with my poor sorrows?' 'And make mine so much lighter,' she replied. 'Dear Trotwood, no!' 'Dear Agnes,' I said, 'it is presumptuous for me, who am so poor in all in which you are so rich - goodness, resolution, all noble qualities - to doubt or direct you; but you know how much I love you, and how much I owe you. You will never sacrifice yourself to a mistaken sense of duty, Agnes?' More agitated for a moment than I had ever seen her, she took her hands from me, and moved a step back. 'Say you have no such thought, dear Agnes! Much more than sister! Think of the priceless gift of such a heart as yours, of such a love as yours!' Oh! long, long afterwards, I saw that face rise up before me, with its momentary look, not wondering, not accusing, not regretting. Oh, long, long afterwards, I saw that look subside, as it did now, into the lovely smile, with which she told me she had no fear for herself - I need have none for her - and parted from me by the name of Brother, and was gone! It was dark in the morning, when I got upon the coach at the inn door. The day was just breaking when we were about to start, and then, as I sat thinking of her, came struggling up the coach side, through the mingled day and night, Uriah's head. |
