" And
he pointed toward Sophy coming through the garden, with a warm
shawl tucked under her arm, for the dew was heavy that night and
she feared lest Nina should take cold.
"Nina won't go yet; she isn't ready," persisted the capricious
maiden. "Go till I call you," and having thus summarily dismissed
Soph, the little lady resumed the seat from which she had arisen,
and laying her head on Richard's, whispered to him softly, "CAN'T
YOU SCRATCH IT OUT?"
"Scratch what out?" he asked; and Nina replied,
"Why, IT; what you've been talking about. Nothing ever came of it
but despair and darkness."
"I do not know what you mean," Richard said, and as Arthur did not
volunteer any information, but sat carelessly scraping his thumb
nail with a pen-knife, Edith made some trivial remark which turned
the channel of Nina's thoughts, and she forgot to urge the request
that "it should be scratched out."
"Nina'll go now," she said, after ten minutes had elapsed, and
calling Soph, Arthur was soon on his way home, hardly knowing
whether he was glad or sorry that every proof of his early error
was forever destroyed.
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