This awful
news was received with an hilarity which nettled me.
CHARTY: "I should have thought you had too much sense of humour
and Mr. G. too much common sense for either of you to believe
this. He must think you very vain. ..."
I did not know at all what she meant and said with the utmost
gravity:
"The terrible thing is I believe that I have given him a false
impression of my feelings for him; for, though I love him very
much, I would never have promised to marry him if he had not said
he was going to kill himself." Clasping my two hands together and
greatly moved, I concluded, "If I break it off now and ANYTHING
SHOULD happen, my life is over and I shall feel as if I had
murdered him."
CHARTY (looking at me with a tender smile): "I should risk it,
darling."
A propos of vanity, in the interests of my publisher I must here
digress and relate the two greatest compliments that I ever had
paid to me. Although I cannot listen to reading out loud, I have
always been fond of sermons and constantly went to hear Canon
Eyton, a great preacher, who collected large and attentive
congregations in his church in Sloane Street. I nearly always went
alone, as my family preferred listening to Stopford Brooke or
going to our pew in St. George's, Hanover Square.
One of my earliest recollections is of my mother and father taking
me to hear Liddon preach; I remember nothing at all about it
except that I swallowed a hook and eye during the service: not a
very flattering tribute to the great divine!
Eyton was a striking preacher and his church was always crowded.
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