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I mean shad, and salmon, and rock-fish, and roe-deer, and hogs, and buffaloes, and bisons, and elephants, for what I know. I'm no sportsman." "No, indeed," said Mr. Washington, with a look of scarcely repressed scorn. "Yes, I understand you. I am a milksop. I have been bred at my mamma's knee. Look at these pretty apron-strings, Colonel! Who would not like to be tied to them?
"Gethin is no thief," she answered hotly, "and thou knowest it as well as I do. Thou knowest his nature; 'twould be impossible for him to do a mean thing." "Thou hast a high opinion of him," said Will scornfully. "Is it he, then, who hast stolen thine heart?" Morva walked with bent head, pulling at her apron-strings.
I did not want to lose you even though I knew quite well that you cared for me, and that I should never marry you. Months before I had made up my mind to marry a man with a high position and money. It was just a game I was playing with you. Even when you forced things to a head, I kept it up. I pretended innocency and high motives because I wanted to feel you at my apron-strings always.
My God, my God, how you maltreat me!" He stamped his foot and said violently: "Enough, be silent! I can never see you a moment without hearing that refrain. You were mature when you gave yourself to me. I am much obliged to you; I am infinitely grateful, but I need not be tied to your apron-strings until I die! You have a husband and I a wife.
You've got the looks too, and I don't grudge you the money. Cut her out that's the best advice I can give you. Make your husband see you're the better woman of the two. Cut her out, I'm saying, and don't come whining here like a cry-baby, who runs to her grandmother's apron-strings at the first scratch she gets outside."
Then I tried to draw a lurid picture of his revolt from her apron-strings. "Oh, Harry's a good boy," she said. "You can't make me believe that two days has altered his whole character. I'll answer for his doing what I want." I felt a precisely similar conviction, and my heart sank into my shoes. At this moment there was a tap at the door, and another old lady bounced in.
"You could go to Brighton with Miss De Groat; or what does it matter for a fortnight? You'll get the advantage when it's done. It's as well to have the truth out at once, mamma, I cannot carry on if I'm always to be stuck close to your apron-strings. There are so many people won't have you." "Arabella, I do think you are the most ungrateful, hard-hearted creature that ever lived."
Yet the things which she proposed were absurd. "This is folly," I answered her. "I cannot count it anything else. Do you suppose that I want to creep through life at a woman's apron-strings? I am old enough, and strong enough, I hope, to think and act for myself. My career is my own, to make or to mar. I do not wish for enmity from any one, but your friendship I cannot accept.
After a while I'll begin to believe that there must be something hauntingly beautiful and girlish about me or every one wouldn't petrify when I announce that I've a six-foot son attached to my apron-strings. He looks twenty-one, but he's seventeen. He thinks the world's rotten because he can't grow one of those fuzzy little mustaches that the men are cultivating to match their hats.
You are far better able to judge what you like than she is, and she can't expect to tie you to her apron-strings all your life, can she?" "No, but she is very kind and good to me, and I'm young yet to leave her and Aunt Bretta. Perhaps, when I am older, she will not object to my going away," I replied.
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