properly loaded with unexpected meanings.
“And next it goes on and on and on about the eldest son–not the
favorite, this one–and how lie is neglected in his poor barren boyhood,
and allowed to grow up unschooled, ignorant, coarse, vulgar, the comrade
of the community’s scum, and become in his completed manhood a rude,
profane, dissipated ruffian–”
That head still drooped! Sally rose, moved softly and solemnly a step or
two, and stood before Tracy–his head came slowly up, his meek eyes met
her intense ones–then she finished with deep impressiveness–
“–named Spinal Meningitis Snodgrass!”
Tracy merely exhibited signs of increased fatigue. The girl was outraged
by this iron indifference and callousness, and cried out–
“What are you made of?”
“I? Why?”
“Haven’t you any sensitiveness? Don’t these things touch any poor
remnant of delicate feeling in you?”
“N–no,” he said wonderingly, “they don’t seem to. Why should they?”
“O, dear me, how can you look so innocent, and foolish, and good, and
empty, and gentle, and all that, right in the hearing of such things as
those! Look me in the eye-straight in the eye. There, now then, answer
me without a flinch. Isn’t Doctor Snodgrass your father, and isn’t
Zylobalsamum your brother,” [here Hawkins was about to enter the room,
but changed his mind upon hearing these words, and elected for a walk
down town, and so glided swiftly away], “and isn’t your name Spinal
Meningitis, and isn’t your father a doctor and an idiot, like all the
family for generations, and doesn’t he name all his children after
poisons and pestilences and, abnormal anatomical eccentricities of the
human body? Answer me, some way or somehow–and quick. Why do you sit
there looking like an envelope without any address on it and see me going
mad before your face with suspense!”
“Oh, I wish I could do–do–I wish I could do something, anything that
would give you peace again and make you happy; but I know of nothing–
I know of no way. I have never heard of these awful people before.”
“What? Say it again!”
“I have never-never in my life till now.”
“Oh, you do look so honest when you say that! It must be true–surely
you couldn’t look that way, you wouldn’t look that way if it were not
true–would you?”
“I couldn’t and wouldn’t. It is true. Oh, let us end this suffering–
take me back into your heart and confidence–”
“Wait–one more thing. Tell me you told that falsehood out of mere
vanity and are sorry for it; that you’re not expecting to ever wear the
coronet of an earl–”
“Truly I am cured–cured this very day–I am not expecting it!”
“O, now you are mine! I’ve got you back in the beauty and glory of your
unsmirched poverty and your honorable obscurity, and nobody shall ever
take you from me again but the grave! And if–”
“De earl of Rossmore, fum Englan’!”
“My father!” The, young man released the girl and hung his head.
The old gentleman stood surveying the couple–the one with a strongly
complimentary right eye, the other with a mixed expression done with the
left. This is difficult, and not often resorted to. Presently his face
relaxed into a kind of constructive gentleness, and he said to his son:
“Don’t you think you could embrace me, too?”
The young man did it with alacrity. “Then you are the son of an earl,
after all,” said Sally, reproachfully.
“Yes, I–”
“Then I won’t have you!”
“O, but you know–”
“No, I will not. You’ve told me another fib.”
“She’s right. Go away and leave us. I want to talk with her.”
Berkeley was obliged to go. But he did not go far. He remained on the
premises. At midnight the conference between the old gentleman and the
young girl was still going blithely on, but it presently drew to a close,
and the former said:
“I came all the way over here to inspect you, my dear, with the general
idea of breaking off this match if there were two fools of you, but as
there’s only one, you can have him if you’ll take him.”
“Indeed I will, then! May I kiss you?”