"Everybody don't know every thing," rejoined Susan, her eyes still riveted to her work, and her heart throbbing so that it seemed to her her companion must hear it.
"Well, now," continued the persevering gossip, "Susan May, be candid, and own, if you should hear that Harry Aikin was going to marry Paulina Clark, should not you feel as if he had deceived you?"
"No," replied Susan, now speaking firmly, and looking her companion full in the face; "if all the world, and Charlotte, thought Harry paid me particular attention—and if I sometimes had thought so too, and if he marries Paulina Clark to-morrow, I should think we were all mistaken, and Harry true-hearted."
"Well, you'll be put to the trial, for Paulina as good as owned to me her expectations; but I am sorry for your disappointment, for you can't but say 'tis a disappointment." Susan said nothing, and her tormentor proceeded. "It's nothing new nor strange; them that has not any interest[1] must expect to be slighted; and I have often heard that when young men get to New-York, all they think of is making money, and getting a wife that will make a show with it; and you say yourself that Harry thought Paulina a beauty."
Susan made no reply, and Adeline, having succeeded in making her uncomfortable, began to feel very much so herself, from the effect of Susan's quiet dignity; and, much to Susan's satisfaction, she cut short her visit and disappeared. When
- ↑ Interest is, in rustic sense, property.
