後悔

  'When I was a young man just down from university, I was offered a job teaching English at a grammar school in Wolcestershire. I'd never been happier, until I fell in love with the headmaster's eldest daughter, but didn't have the courage to let her know. ' 

 

'Why not?'

'I've always been shy, especially around women, and in any case, I was afraid the headmaster wouldn't approve. It must sound silly now, but it was a different world in those days. I moved to another school and later learned that she had never married. I might have been able to live with that if just last year, when I attended her funeral, her younger sister hadn't told me that I was her first and only love, but her father had told her she must do nothing unless I made my feelings known. What a fool I was. A moment wasted, to be followed by a lifetime of regret. Young man, be sure not to make the same mistake. Faint heart ne'er won a lady fair. '

'Robert Burns?' said Seb.

from p.266  "Mightier than the sword" written by Jeffery Archer