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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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'The ride will do his master good, at all events,' observed my aunt, glancing at the papers on my table. 'Ah, child, you pass a good many hours here! I never thought, when I used to read books, what work it was to write them.' 'It's work enough to read them, sometimes,' I returned. 'As to the writing, it has its own charms, aunt.' 'Ah! I see!' said my aunt. 'Ambition, love of approbation, sympathy, and much more, I suppose? Well: go along with you!' 'Do you know anything more,' said I, standing composedly before her - she had patted me on the shoulder, and sat down in my chair - 'of that attachment of Agnes?' She looked up in my face a little while, before replying: 'I think I do, Trot.' 'Are you confirmed in your impression?' I inquired. 'I think I am, Trot.' She looked so steadfastly at me: with a kind of doubt, or pity, or suspense in her affection: that I summoned the stronger determination to show her a perfectly cheerful face. 'And what is more, Trot -' said my aunt. 'Yes!' 'I think Agnes is going to be married.' 'God bless her!' said I, cheerfully. 'God bless her!' said my aunt, 'and her husband too!' I echoed it, parted from my aunt, and went lightly downstairs, mounted, and rode away. There was greater reason than before to do what I had resolved to do. How well I recollect the wintry ride! The frozen particles of ice, brushed from the blades of grass by the wind, and borne across my face; the hard clatter of the horse's hoofs, beating a tune upon the ground; the stiff-tilled soil; the snowdrift, lightly eddying |
