They want the wedding to be soon. Let it be
soon. Where's the use of lingering over these things."
"You speak somehow, Trixie, I mean Bee, my girl, as if you
didn't--didn't quite like it," said the mother, then a trace of anxiety
coming into her smooth, contented voice: "You shan't have him, I mean he
shan't have you, unless you want him with your whole heart, Bee, my
darling."
"Mother," said Beatrice, kneeling down by her, and putting her arms
round her neck, "it is not given to all girls to want a thing with their
whole heart. I have always been happy, always filled, always content.
Therefore I go away without any special sense of rejoicing. But oh, not
unhappily--oh, far from that."
"You're sure, Trixie--you are speaking the whole truth to your own
mother? Your words are sober to belong to a young girl who is soon to be
a bride. Somehow I wasn't like that when your father came for me."
"No two girls are alike, mother. I speak the sober truth, the plain,
honest truth, when I tell you that I am happy. Still, my happiness is
not unmixed when I think of leaving you."
"Hoots-toots, child, I'll do well enough. Jane will look after me, and
that nice little friend of yours, Catherine, will come and cheer me up
now and then. I shall have lots to do, too, this autumn, for I'm going
to have all the chintzes recalendered, and the carpets taken up and
darned in the weak places, and there are some sheets to be cut down the
middle and sewn up again.
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