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Updated: August 8, 2024
Since her earliest childhood, Araminta had been taught that marriage was wrong that her own mother was wicked, because she had been married. And of the love between man and woman, the child knew absolutely nothing. "Good God!" muttered Ralph. "My little girl, oh, my little girl!"
When the dishes were washed and put away, Miss Mehitable came out, clad in her rustling black silk and her best bonnet. "Miss Lee," she said very coldly, "I am going out." "All right, Aunt Hitty" returned Araminta, cheerfully. "As it happens, I'm not." Miss Mehitable repressed an exclamation of horror. Seemingly, then, it had occurred to Araminta to go out in the evening alone!
"Araminta Lee," said Miss Mehitable, warningly, "look careful where you're steppin'. Hell is yawning in front of you this very minute!" Araminta smiled sweetly. Since the day the minister had gone to see her, she had had no fear of hell. "I don't see it, Aunt Hitty," she said, "but if everybody who hasn't pieced more than eight quilts by hand is in there, it must be pretty crowded."
Miss Araminta, you are not coming down the walk yet; it appears you are in no hurry, so I'll begin my new book." After this soliloquy there was silence. Spikeman made a sign to Joey to remain still, and then, creeping on his hands and knees, by degrees arrived as far as he could venture to the other side of the copse.
"Would they go to the bad place just because they didn't know?" Miss Mehitable squirmed in her chair, for never before had Araminta spoken thus. "There's no excuse for their not knowin'," she said, sharply. "Perhaps not," sighed Araminta, "but it seems dreadful to think of people being burned up just for ignorance. Do you think I'll be burned up, Aunt Hitty?" she continued, anxiously.
"You may tell the Ladies' Aid Society, for me, that next Sunday morning I will give my congregation a sermon on hell." "I thought I could make you see the reason in it," remarked Miss Mehitable, piously taking credit to herself, "and now that it's settled, I want to speak of Araminta." "She's getting well all right, isn't she?" queried Thorpe, anxiously.
"You told me there was no one in the world for whom you cared more than you care for me. You said you loved me, and I love you God knows I do. If you'll trust me, Araminta, you'll never be sorry, never for one single minute as long as you live. Would you like to live with me in a little house with roses climbing over it, just us two alone?"
I didn't really intend, however easy it would be to do so, to create a flutter of a permanent nature in any other woman's heart that is, not until I was sure that Araminta was lost to me forever. After a decent period of mourning I might have used my twinkle for permanent effect, but at that moment my only idea was to show Araminta that if one could be fickle, two could be twice as fickle.
Araminta's whole heart yearned toward Ralph yearned unspeakably. In something else, surely, Aunt Hitty was wrong. "Araminta," said Thorpe, his voice shaking; "dear child, come here." She followed him into the house. His trembling old hands lighted a candle and she saw that his eyes were full of tears. From an inner pocket, he drew out a small case, wrapped in many thicknesses of worn paper.
"Bartrand you have no ears, Welshwoman as you are!" retorted Terence O'Grady. "Subscription two guineas, for the Sorrows of Araminta," continued our heroine; but, looking up, she saw Betty Williams and the hackney-coachman making menacing faces and gestures at one another. "Fight it out in the passage, for Heaven's sake!" said Angelina; "if you must fight, fight out of my sight."
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