Go and marry the person your mother
chooses, and let my dear die here deserted!"

"Great heavens, Hetty!" I cry, amazed at the logic of the little woman.
"Is it I who wish to leave your sister? Did I not offer to keep my
promise, and was it not your father who refused me, and made me promise
never to try and see her again? What have I but my word, and my honour?"

"Honour, indeed! You keep your word to him, and you break it to her!
Pretty honour! If I were a man, I would soon let you know what I thought
of your honour! Only I forgot--you are bound to keep the peace and
mustn't... Oh, George, George! Don't you see the grief I am in? I am
distracted, and scarce know what I say. You must not leave my darling.
They don't know it at home. They don't think so but I know her best of
all, and she will die if you leave her. Say you won't! Have pity upon
me, Mr. Warrington, and give me my dearest back!" Thus the warm-hearted,
distracted creature ran from anger to entreaty, from scorn to tears. Was
my little doctor right in thus speaking of the case of her dear patient?
Was there no other remedy than that which Hetty cried for? Have not
others felt the same cruel pain of amputation, undergone the same
exhaustion and fever afterwards, lain hopeless of anything save death,
and yet recovered after all, and limped through life subsequently? Why,
but that love is selfish, and does not heed other people's griefs and
passions, or that ours was so intense and special that we deemed no
other lovers could suffer like ourselves;--here in the passionate young
pleader for her sister, we might have shown an instance that a fond
heart could be stricken with the love malady and silently suffer it,
live under it, recover from it. What had happened in Hetty's own case?
Her sister and I, in our easy triumph and fond confidential prattle, had
many a time talked over that matter, and, egotists as we were, perhaps
drawn a secret zest and security out of her less fortunate attachment.
'Twas like sitting by the fireside and hearing the winter howling
without; 'twas like walking by the maxi magno, and seeing the ship
tossing at sea. We clung to each other only the more closely, and,
wrapped in our own happiness, viewed others' misfortunes with complacent
pity. Be the truth as it may. Grant that we might have been sundered,
and after a while survived the separation, so much my sceptical old age
may be disposed to admit. Yet, at that time, I was eager enou