.MjE1.NDg0NTE
211) confused that I can only understand the general drift & a few detached sentances. Mrs L. told her that she had had a "talk in the dark" with him before he left, & he said he "liked me much better than any girl he had ever seen, & that I was the only woman he would ever care to pass his life with, that he didn't think he was in love with me now, but that he should be if he saw any more of me, that if I was a poor girl it might do but under the circumstances it would be much better for him to go away & never see me again. - He said he didn't think I cared for him now, but that perhaps I might! I think it was dreadful in his Mother to tell Sister all this, told to her of course in the strictest confidence, & what I have no right to know. I'm sure I don't know what Sister said to her, it was certainly a most extraordinary conversation. She was evidently tormented to know if her son had committed himself, & among other things she said he was a perfect baby & Sister declared I was a perfect child & so they went on. - Mrs Little almost swore that she would never let him know
(212 that she knows about the letter, & she thanked Sister for relieving her mind, over & over again & finally she came in a kissed me good bye, the tears streaming down her face, & in her confusion kissed the two Ogdens also. I never saw such a woman, she acts entirely on impulse, & who but her would ever have said such things - & yet she is very nice & I like her very much. - I know I have done what is right; by staying away & being horrid to Mrs Little I have made her understand, that if he intended to get six months leave on my account, he had much better now. Even without directly encouraging him, I might have remained passive & let things take there course, he would have come over, & neither he nor his mother could have blamed me for it; as before that letter he had never made the slightest demonstration. I have been an angel for once in my life, & probably shall be sorry for it. - Sister was certainly not justified in telling her about the letter & it was a grat breach of confidence on her part: though she does not seem to think so. -