Not Pretty, but Precious | Page 2

as soon as you were able to think of anything,
and the dread that she would follow and marry you while you lay
helpless was made a certainty by this telegram from an intimate friend
in New York, received the sixth day of your illness:
"It's all up with you, old fellow. The R. has heard you're fast with a
broken leg, and she starts on Monday for Boston. Have the clergy ready,
for it's marriage."
Then in your bitter need you remembered having talked with me in this
hotel-parlor the very day of your accident. I had been a school-friend of
your dead sister, and for her sake, on the rare occasions of your seeing
me, you have always been polite and kindly patronized me. Now, lying
helpless and unable to extricate yourself from your dilemma, you
recalled the evident pleasure upon my foolish, tell-tale face at seeing
you, the delight I had betrayed in the attention you had shown me, such
as finding a seat at dinner for myself and my old lady friend, although
some elegant and fashionable girls were waiting with ill-suppressed
eagerness for your escort. Remembering all this, knowing as you did
that I was poor, wearing out my life in teaching, in your sore need you
suddenly thought, "I wonder if the girl wouldn't marry me? She'd make
a good nurse, could look after my traps, and, though she is as ugly as
sin and a nobody, wouldn't be the deuced disgrace to a fellow this
Rollins woman will be. At all events, she'll save me from that fate if
she takes up with my offer. It's a choice of evils, and this would be the
least; and I'll try it." This, in plain, unadorned speech, was what you
thought. Then you sent for me, began very pathetically to talk of your
desolate state, your family all dead, and so on; that it had been sadly

brought home to you how alone you were while lying sick, hour after
hour, in this great hotel, with only your valet to attend to you and take
an interest in your well-being; and that, day after day, as you lay
thinking of your fate, my face had come before you, recalling tender
memories of your lost and dearly-loved sister. Then you had
remembered that as girl and boy we had been lovers, and really cared
very much for each other. As you got this far toward your _grande
dénouement_, something in my face, I suppose, made you realize that if
you were to compass your ends with me it must be by honesty only.
Then you blurted it all out--in, as I could not help thinking as I listened,
as school-boyish and abashed a way as if you had--well, as if you had
not been a consummate man of the world, rather noted for your
aplomb.
It came across me (as I heard you in dumb amazement, with crimson
face and trembling frame) that even the best polish of years' laying on
will crack somewhere under very hard pressure. Well, you were honest
and told me all, never pretending, as you had at first essayed to do, that
it was out of any lingering regard for myself as your sister's friend that
you sought me now, but simply on account of my availability. Had
there been some bright young beauty with wealth and station at hand,
no thought of me would ever have entered your mind: all this I
understood at once from your half confessions--all this, I was glad to
find, you had at least enough honor to let me know, although you
risked what to you in your actual situation was very perilous--a refusal.
I asked until the next day to consider the matter--whether it would be
better to take service with you, exchange for my boarding, clothing and
incidental expenses the daily care of your comfort and pleasure, or earn
my bread in the old wearing way. And the second day after that we
were married. That is all. I believe that to be a simple statement of the
facts in your case: I am right, am I not?
The day after our marriage your lady-love and her paternal ancestor
came. At my own suggestion and with your eager consent I received
them, and the result you know.
Now for my own reasons for this strange marriage. You are aware that

my father was a professor of mathematics in various schools and
colleges of the city where he lived, teaching in the school, among
others, in which your sister and myself were pupils. I believe you know
that when a young man he had eloped with and married one of his
scholars, the daughter of a rich and proud family, who discarded her.
For years she