"
XLVI.
GOING BACK FOR A FRIEND.
When I reached home, I looked up my grandmother and told her everything
that had happened. My excitement was so great that it was necessary I
should talk to some one, and I felt a pang of regret when I remembered
that latterly I had given no confidences to her.
My grandmother listened eagerly and without interrupting me, but as I
spoke she shook her head again and again, and when I had finished, she
said:--
"My dear boy, if you understood the world and the people in it as well
as I do, you would know that that sort of thing could never, never work.
Before long you and Sylvia would be madly in love with each other, and
then what would happen nobody knows. It may be that Mother Anastasia has
not fully done her duty in this case, or it may be that she has done too
much, and other people may have acted improperly and without due thought
and caution; but be this as it may, it is plain enough to see that your
poor heart has been dreadfully wrung. I wish I had known before of this
brotherhood notion, and of what you intended to do, and I would have
told you, as I tell you now, that in this world we must accept
situations. That is the only way in which we can get along at all.
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