Sarah had only her father; and when her heart began to fructify and expand, all her affections expanded with it. Not that her heart had, as yet, any object to rest on. By no means. But the time had come. There was no resisting _it_, any more than resistance may be predicated of the green leaf, which _must_ put forth in the spring, bringing bud and flower and fruit after it. Yet, I repeat, Sarah Burns was unconscious, actually and absolutely unconscious. Do not suppose she cared specially about Hiram Meeker. She did not. Her nature only was on the alert, not she. Hiram, all things considered, was the most agreeable man she had met, and why should she not be attracted by him--to an extent? I say attracted: I do not mean anything else. Why should she not be?
Joel Burns, I cannot help pitying you. With no living being with whom you can intimately sympathize, except your daughter--_her_ child, on whom the affluence of your heart had all been shed! You feel instinctively the real state of things. And you quite understand it. You knew it was to be. But you hoped, not quite so soon--not _quite_ so soon.
Perhaps, reader, I may not echo your own sentiments, when I speak of Joel Burns. But I love a genuine nature, as his. I admire beyond expression honesty of _soul_--that honesty which will not think of itself nor seek to have others think of it different from what it really is.
Mr. Burns, as I have already observed, took the papers which Hiram put in his hands, in the belief they contained little to satisfy or encourage him. While his confidential clerk was absent, he had permitted his mind to dwell on the 'unfortunate affair' more than was his habit in relation to any matter of business. This, however, was assuming such ugly proportions, that he could not avoid it. Sarah also could not help talking about it. So that Hiram's arrival served to terminate a suspense which had become painful.
Sarah Burns, after receiving Hiram's response to her question (she thought and cared only for the single word 'won'), ran joyfully into the room to congratulate her father and get full particulars. She was surprised to find him seated at the breakfast table, the bundle of papers laid aside untouched, while his countenance certainly gave no indication that he had just received agreeable intelligence.