He got together several
sentences
now.
Yeats
Beside him on the seat was a pencil, as though someone had
been writing there and left it behind them. The pencil-lead was worn
very short. The letter had been torn up, perhaps in a fit of impatience.
In a half-mechanical way he glanced over the scraps. On one of them
he read: 'MY DEAR ELIZA,--What an incurable gossip my mother is. You
heard of my misfortune. I nearly died----' Here he had to search among
the scraps; at last he found one that seemed to follow. 'Perhaps you
will hear news from me soon. There is a handsome young man who pays me
attention, and----' Here another piece had to be found. 'I would take
him though he had a face like the man in the moon, and limped like the
devil at the theatre. Perhaps I am a little in love. Oh! friend of
my heart--' Here it broke off again. He was interested, and searched
the grass and the bushes for fragments. Some had been blown to quite
a distance.
He got together several sentences now. 'I will not spend
another winter with my mother for anything. All this is, of course, a
secret. I had to tell somebody; secrets are bad for my health. Perhaps
it will all come to nothing. ' Then the letter went off into dress, the
last novel the writer had read, and so forth. A Miss Sims, too, was
mentioned, who had said some unkind thing of the writer.
Sherman was greatly amused. It did not seem to him wrong to read--we do
not mind spying on one of the crowd, any more than on the personages of
literature. It never occurred to him that he, or any friend of his, was
concerned in these pencil scribblings.
Suddenly he saw this sentence: 'Heigho! your poor Margaret is falling
in love again; condole with her, my dear. '
He started. The name 'Margaret,' the mention of Miss Sims, the style
of the whole letter, all made plain the authorship. Very desperately
ashamed of himself, he got up and tore each scrap of paper into still
smaller fragments and scattered them far apart.
That evening he proposed and was accepted.
been writing there and left it behind them. The pencil-lead was worn
very short. The letter had been torn up, perhaps in a fit of impatience.
In a half-mechanical way he glanced over the scraps. On one of them
he read: 'MY DEAR ELIZA,--What an incurable gossip my mother is. You
heard of my misfortune. I nearly died----' Here he had to search among
the scraps; at last he found one that seemed to follow. 'Perhaps you
will hear news from me soon. There is a handsome young man who pays me
attention, and----' Here another piece had to be found. 'I would take
him though he had a face like the man in the moon, and limped like the
devil at the theatre. Perhaps I am a little in love. Oh! friend of
my heart--' Here it broke off again. He was interested, and searched
the grass and the bushes for fragments. Some had been blown to quite
a distance.
He got together several sentences now. 'I will not spend
another winter with my mother for anything. All this is, of course, a
secret. I had to tell somebody; secrets are bad for my health. Perhaps
it will all come to nothing. ' Then the letter went off into dress, the
last novel the writer had read, and so forth. A Miss Sims, too, was
mentioned, who had said some unkind thing of the writer.
Sherman was greatly amused. It did not seem to him wrong to read--we do
not mind spying on one of the crowd, any more than on the personages of
literature. It never occurred to him that he, or any friend of his, was
concerned in these pencil scribblings.
Suddenly he saw this sentence: 'Heigho! your poor Margaret is falling
in love again; condole with her, my dear. '
He started. The name 'Margaret,' the mention of Miss Sims, the style
of the whole letter, all made plain the authorship. Very desperately
ashamed of himself, he got up and tore each scrap of paper into still
smaller fragments and scattered them far apart.
That evening he proposed and was accepted.
