"I don't think
about much else. I never shall think about much else while I'm with you.
I'll never settle down and grind if I stay here. You know that." I dropped
down beside her and sat looking at the floor. I seemed to have forgotten
all my reasonable explanations.
Lena drew close to me, and the little hesitation in her voice that had
hurt me was not there when she spoke again.
"I ought n't to have begun it, ought I?" she murmured. "I ought n't to
have gone to see you that first time. But I did want to. I guess I've
always been a little foolish about you. I don't know what first put it
into my head, unless it was Antonia, always telling me I must n't be up to
any of my nonsense with you. I let you alone for a long while, though, did
n't I?"
She was a sweet creature to those she loved, that Lena Lingard!
At last she sent me away with her soft, slow, renunciatory kiss. "You are
n't sorry I came to see you that time?" she whispered. "It seemed so
natural. I used to think I'd like to be your first sweetheart. You were
such a funny kid!" She always kissed one as if she were sadly and wisely
sending one away forever.
We said many good-byes before I left Lincoln, but she never tried to
hinder me or hold me back. "You are going, but you have n't gone yet, have
you?" she used to say.
My Lincoln chapter closed abruptly. I went home to my grandparents for a
few weeks, and afterward visited my relatives in Virginia until I joined
Cleric in Boston.
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