I may write thus, Max, may I not? It is like talking to myself, talking to you.
It was on this very drive home that something happened, which I am going to relate as literally as I can, for I think you ought to know it. It will make you love my sister as I love her, which is saying a good deal.
Watching her, I almost--forgive, dear Max!--but I almost forgot my letter to you, safely written overnight, to be posted on our way home from the Cedars; till Penelope thought of a village post-office we had just passed.
"Don't vex yourself, child," she said, "you shall cross the moor again; you will be quite in time; and I will drive round, and meet you just beyond the ponds."
And, in my hurry, utterly forgot that cottage you know, which she has never yet been near, nor is aware who live in it. Not till I had posted my letter, did I call to mind that she would be passing Mrs. Cartwright's very door!
However, it was too late to alter plans, so I resolved not to fret about it. And, somehow, the spring feeling came over me; the smell of furze-blossoms, and of green leaves budding; the vague sense as if some new blessing were coming with the coming year. And, though I had not Max with me, to admire my one stray violet that I found, and listen to my lark--the first, singing up in his white cloud, still I thought of you, and I loved you! With a love that, I think, those only feel who have suffered, and suffered together: a love that, though it may have known a few pains, has never, thank God, known a single doubt. And so you did not feel so very far away.
Then I walked on as fast as I could, to meet the pony-carriage, which I saw crawling along the road round the turn--past the very cottage. My heart beat so! But Penelope drove quietly on, looking straight before her. She would have driven by in a minute; when, right across the road, in front of the pony, after a dog or something, I saw run a child.
How I got to the spot I hardly know; how the child escaped I know still less; it was almost a miracle. But there stood Penelope, with the little fellow in her arms. He was unhurt--not even frightened.
I took him from her--she was still too bewildered to observe him much--besides, a child alters so in six months. "He is all right you see. Run away, little man."