This brother I say, quarrelled with me, though I had borne from
him unresentingly, what from another would have seemed insult. We
quarrelled at last, and the house was closed against me, or would have
been had I sought access; for I walked sternly by its pleasant door that
afternoon, though I remember now how the very roses that o'erhung the
porch, the benched and shaded porch, that lovely lingering place, seemed
to beckon me in. It was a breathless summer day, and the vine curled in
the open window,--even now those lowly rooms make a brighter image of
heaven to me than the jewelled walls that of old grew in the pageant of
our sabbath dreams.
_Andre_. And thus you abandoned your love? A quarrel with her brother?
_Mait_. I never wronged her with the shadow of a doubt. Directly, that
same day, I wrote to her to fix our meeting elsewhere, that we might
renew our broken plans in some fitter shape for the altered times. She
sent me a few lines of grave refusal, Sir; and the next letter was
returned unopened.
_Andre_. 'Twas that brother! Pshaw! 'twas that brother, Maitland. I'll
lay my life the lady saw no word of it.
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