"stoker-dracula-168" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stoker Bram)

Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray.

"24 May.

"My dearest Mina,-

"Thanks, and thanks, and thanks again for your sweet letter. It
was so nice to be able to tell you and to have your sympathy.

"My dear, it never rains but it pours. How true the old proverbs
are. Here am I, who shall be twenty in September, and yet I never
had a proposal till to-day, not a real proposal, and to-day I have had
three. Just fancy! Three proposals in one day! Isn't it awful I feel
sorry, really and truly sorry, for two of the poor fellows. Oh,
Mina, I am so happy that I don't know what to do with myself. And
three proposals! But, for goodness' sake, don't tell any of the girls,
or they would be getting all sorts of extravagant ideas and
imagining themselves injured and slighted if in their very first day
at home they did not get six at least. Some girls are so vain! You and
I, Mina dear, who are engaged and are going to settle down soon
soberly into old married women, can despise vanity. Well, I must
tell you about the three, but you must keep it a secret, dear, from
every one, except, of course, Jonathan. You will tell him, because I
would, if I were in your place, certainly tell Arthur. A woman ought
to tell her husband everything- don't you think so dear?- and I must
be fair. Men like women, certainly their wives, to be quite as fair as
they are; and women, I am afraid, are not always quite as fair as they
should be. Well, my dear, number One came just before lunch. I told
you of him, Dr. John Seward, the lunatic-asylum man, with the strong
jaw and the good forehead. He was very cool outwardly, but was nervous
all the same. He had evidently been schooling himself as to all
sorts of little things, and remembered them; but he almost managed
to sit down on his silk hat, which men don't generally do when they
are cool, and then when he wanted to appear at ease he kept playing
with a lancet in a way that made me nearly scream. He spoke to me,
Mina, very straightforwardly. He told me how dear I was to him, though
he had known me so little, and what his life would be with me to
help and cheer him. He was going to tell me how unhappy he would be if
I did not care for him, but when he saw me cry he said that he was a
brute and would not add to my present trouble. Then he broke off and
asked if I could love him in time; and when I shook my head his
hands trembled, and then with some hesitation he asked me if I cared
already for any one else. He put it very nicely, saying that he did
not want to wring my confidence from me, but only to know, because
if a woman's heart was free a man might have hope. And then, Mina, I
felt a sort of duty to tell him that there was some one. I only told
him that much, and then he stood up, and he looked very strong and
very grave as he took both my hands in his and said he hoped I would
be happy, and that if I ever wanted a friend I must count him one of
my best. Oh, Mina dear, I can't help crying; and you must excuse