"I hope he will," said Cecily cruelly. She was truly vexed over
the letter; and yet, so contradictory a thing is the feminine
heart, even at twelve years old, I think she was a little
flattered by it also. It was her first love letter and she
confided to me that it gives you a very queer feeling to get it.
At all events--the letter, though unanswered, was not torn up. I
feel sure Cecily preserved it. But she walked past Cyrus next
morning at school with a frozen countenance, evincing not the
slightest pity for his pangs of unrequited affection. Cecily
winced when Pat caught a mouse, visited a school chum the day the
pigs were killed that she might not hear their squealing, and
would not have stepped on a caterpillar for anything; yet she did
not care at all how much she made the brisk Cyrus suffer.
Then, suddenly, all our spring gladness and Maytime hopes were
blighted as by a killing frost. Sorrow and anxiety pervaded our
days and embittered our dreams by night. Grim tragedy held sway
in our lives for the next fortnight.
Paddy disappeared. One night he lapped his new milk as usual at
Uncle Roger's dairy door and then sat blandly on the flat stone
before it, giving the world assurance of a cat, sleek sides
glistening, plumy tail gracefully folded around his paws,
brilliant eyes watching the stir and flicker of bare willow boughs
in the twilight air above him.
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