In her placid sisterly manner; with her beaming eyes; with her tender voice; and with that sweet composure, which had long ago made the house that held her quite a sacred place to me; she soon won me from this weakness, and led me on to tell all that had happened since our last meeting.
“And there is not another word to tell, Agnes,” said I, when I had made an end of my confidence. “Now, my reliance is on you.”
“But it must not be on me, Trotwood,” returned Agnes, with a pleasant smile. “It must be on someone else.”
“On Dora?” said I.
“Assuredly.”
“Why, I have not mentioned, Agnes,” said I, a little embarrassed, “that Dora is rather difficult to—I would not, for the world, say, to rely upon, because she is the soul of purity and truth—but rather difficult to—I hardly know how to express it, really, Agnes. She is a timid little thing, and easily disturbed and frightened. Some time ago, before her father’s death, when I thought it right to mention to her—but I’ll tell you, if you will bear with me, how it was.”
Accordingly, I told Agnes about my declaration of poverty, about the cookery-book, the housekeeping accounts, and all the rest of it.
“Oh, Trotwood!” she remonstrated, with a smile. “Just your old headlong way! You might have been in earnest in striving to get on in the world, without being so very sudden with a timid, loving, inexperienced girl. Poor Dora!”