I have only known you since Sunday, but you
seem like an old friend; and so, you won't mind me telling you that
ever since I first met Arthur among the Alps I have lived in a kind of
ideal world of which he was the center. I am an orphan, you know, and
an heiress, too. There is half a million, they say; and Uncle
Hetherton has charge of it. Now, will you believe me when I say that I
would give every dollar of this for Arthur's love if I could not have
it without."
"I do believe you," Anna replied, inexpressibly glad that the
gathering darkness hid her white face from view as the child-like,
unsuspecting girl went on. "The world, I know, would say that a poor
clergyman was not a good match for me, but I do not care for that.
Cousin Fanny favors it, I am sure, and Uncle Hetherton would not
oppose me when he saw I was in earnest. Once the world, which is a
very meddlesome thing, picked out Thornton Hastings, of New York, for
me; but my! he was too proud and lofty even to talk to me much, and I
would not speak to him after I heard of his saying that 'I was a
pretty little plaything, but far too frivolous for a sensible man to
make his wife.' Oh, wasn't I angry, though, and don't I hope that when
he gets a wife she will be exactly such a frivolous thing as I am.
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