"I was perhaps a little headlong the other day in advising you to
marry immediately. I have been thinking it over, and now I see it
just a little differently."
"You seem to have a great many different ways of seeing the same
object."
"Their number is infinite!" said Mrs. Penniman, in a tone which
seemed to suggest that this convenient faculty was one of her
brightest attributes.
"I recommend you to take one way and stick to it," Morris replied.
"Ah! but it isn't easy to choose. My imagination is never quiet,
never satisfied. It makes me a bad adviser, perhaps; but it makes me
a capital friend!"
"A capital friend who gives bad advice!" said Morris.
"Not intentionally--and who hurries off, at every risk, to make the
most humble excuses!"
"Well, what do you advise me now?"
"To be very patient; to watch and wait."
"And is that bad advice or good?"
"That is not for me to say," Mrs. Penniman rejoined, with some
dignity. "I only pretend it's sincere."
"And will you come to me next week and recommend something different
and equally sincere?"
"I may come to you next week and tell you that I am in the streets!"
"In the streets?"
"I have had a terrible scene with my brother, and he threatens, if
anything happens, to turn me out of the house. You know I am a poor
woman."
Morris had a speculative idea that she had a little property; but he
naturally did not press this.
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