On the threshold, she turned back and looked again at his face. Her
conscious thoughts were more than she could bear. In sudden impatience
with herself, she exclaimed, "Pshaw! how silly I am!" and hastened
upstairs, more like the old original Hetty than she had been for many
days. Love could not enthrone himself easily in Hetty's nature: it was
a rebellious kingdom. "Thirty-seven years old! Hetty Gunn, you're a
goose," were Hetty's last thoughts as she fell asleep that night. But
when she awoke the next morning, the same refrain, "Why not, why not?"
filled her thoughts; and, when she bade Dr. Eben good-morning, the rosy
color that mounted to her very temples gave him a new happiness.

Why prolong the story of the next few days? They were just such days as
every man and every woman who has loved has lived through, and knows far
better than can be said or sung. Love's beginnings are varied, and
his final crises of avowal take individual shape in each individual
instance: but his processes and symptoms of growth are alike in all
cases; the indefinable delight,--the dreamy wondering joy,--the half
avoidance which really means seeking,--the seeking which shelters itself
under endless pleas,--the ceaseless questioning of faces,--the mute
caresses of looks, and the eloquent caresses of tones,--are they not
written in the books of the chronicles of all lovers? What matter how or
when the crowning moment of full surrender comes? It came to Eben and
Hetty, however, more suddenly at last than it often comes; came in a way
so characteristic of them both, that perhaps to tell it may not be a
sin, since we aim at a complete setting forth of their characters.




VIII.