“Oh, Mrs. Wilson! Oh, you kind, noble-hearted creature, surely Heaven will reward you.”
“That is past praying for, my dear. Heaven wasn't going to be long in debt to a farmer's wife, you may be sure; not a day, not an hour. I had hardly laid you to my breast when you seemed to grow to my heart. My milk had been tormenting me for one thing. My good mother had thought of that, I'll go bail; and of course you relieved me. But, above all, you numbed the wound in my heart, and healed it by degrees: a part of my love that lay in the churchyard seemed to come back like, and settle on the little helpless darling that milked me. At whiles I forgot you were not my own; and even when I remembered it, it was—I don't know—somehow—as if it wasn't so. I knew in my head you were none of mine, but what of that? I didn't feel it here. Well, miss, I nursed you a year and two months, and a finer little girl never was seen, and such a weight! And, of course, I was proud of you; and often your dear mother tried to persuade me to take a twenty-pound note, or ten; but I never would. I could not sell my milk to a queen. I'd refuse it, or I'd make a gift of it, and the love that goes with it, which is beyond price. I didn't say so to her in so many words, but I did use to tell her 'I was as much in her little girl's debt as she was in mine,' and so I was. But as for a silk gown, and a shawl, and the like, I didn't say 'No' to them; who ever does?”
“Nurse!”
“My lamb!”
“Can you ever forgive me for confounding you with a servant? I am so inexperienced. I knew nothing of all this.”
“Oh, Miss Lucy, 'let that flea stick in the wall,' as the saying is.”
“But, dear Mrs. Wilson, now only think that your affection for me should have lasted all these years. You speak as if such tenderness was common. I fear you are mistaken there: most nurses go away and think no more of those to whom they have been as mothers in infancy.”
“How do you know that, Miss Lucy? Who can tell what passes inside those poor women that are ground down into slaves, and never dare show their real hearts to a living creature? Certainly hirelings will be hirelings, and a poor creature that is forced to sell her breast, and is bundled off as soon as she has served the grand folks' turn, why, she behooves to steel herself against nature, and she knows that from the first; but whether she always does get to harden herself, I take leave to doubt. Miss Lucy; I knew an unfortunate girl that nursed a young gentleman, leastways a young nobleman it was, and years after that I have known her to stand outside the hedge for an hour to catch a sight of him at play on the lawn among the other children. Ay, and if she had a penny piece to spare she would go and buy him sugar-plums, and lay wait for him, and give them him, and he heir to thousands a year.”
“Poor thing! Poor thing!”
“Next to the tie of blood, Miss Lucy, the tie of milk is a binding affection. When you went to live twenty miles from us, I behooved to come in the cart and see you from time to time.”
“I remember, nurse, I remember.”
“When I came to our new farm hard by, you were away; but as soon as I heard you were come back, it was like a magnet drawing me. I could not keep away from you.”
“Heaven forbid you should; and I will come and see you, dear nurse.”
“Will ye, now? Do now. I have got a nice little parlor for you. It is a very good house for a farm-house; and there we can set and talk at our ease, and no fine servants, dressed like lords, coming staring in.”
Lucy now proffered a timid request that Mrs. Wilson would take off her bonnet. “I want to see your good kind face without any ornament.”
“Hear to that, now, the darling;” and off came the bonnet.
“Now your cap.”
“Well, I don't know; I hadn't time to do my hair as should be before coming.”
“What does that matter with me? I must see you without that cap.”
“What! don't you like my new cap? Isn't it a pretty cap? Why, I bought it a purpose to come and see you in.”
“Oh, it is a very pretty cap in itself,” said the courtier, “but it does not suit the shape of your face. Oh, what a difference! Ah! now I see your heart in your face. Will you let me make you a cap?”
“Will you, now, Miss Lucy? I shall be so proud wearing it our house will scarce hold me.”
At this juncture a footman came in with a message from Mrs. Bazalgette to remind Lucy that they dined out.
“I must go and dress, nurse.” She then kissed her and promised to ride over and visit her at her farm next week, and spend a long time with her quietly, and so these new old friends parted.
Lucy pondered every word Mrs. Wilson had said to her, and said to herself: “What a child I am still! How little I know! How feebly I must have observed!”
The party at dinner consisted of Mr. Bazalgette, David, and Reginald, who, taking advantage of his mother's absence and Lucy's, had prevailed on the servants to let him dine with the grown-up ones. “Halo? urchin,” said Mr. Bazalgette, “to what do we owe this honor?”
“Papa,” said Reginald, quaking at heart, “if I don't ever begin to be a man what is to become of me?”
Mr. Reginald did not exhibit his full powers at dinner-time. He was greatest at dessert. Peaches and apricots fell like blackberries. He topped up with the ginger and other preserves; then he uttered a sigh, and his eye dwelt on some candied pineapple he had respited too long. Putting the pineapple's escape and the sigh together, Mr. Bazalgette judged that absolute repletion had been attained. “Come, Reginald,” said he, “run away now, and let Mr. Dodd and me have our talk.” Before the words were even out of his mouth a howl broke from the terrible infant. He had evidently feared the proposal, and got this dismal howl all ready.
“Oh, papa! Oh! oh!”
“What is the matter?”
“Don't make me go away with the ladies this time. Jane says I am not a man because I go away when the ladies go. And Cousin Lucy won't marry me till I am a man. Oh, papa, do let me be a man this once.”
“Let him stay, sir,” said David.
“Then he must go and play at the end of the room, and not interrupt our conversation.”
Mr. Reginald consented with rapture. He had got a new puzzle. He could play at it in a corner; all he wanted was to be able to stop Jane's mouth, should she ever jeer him again. Reginald thus disposed of, Mr. Bazalgette courted David to replenish his glass and sit round to the fire. The fire was huge and glowing, the cut glass sparkled, and the ruby wine glowed, and even the faces shone, and all invited genial talk. Yet David, on the eve of his departure and of his fate, oppressed with suspense and care, was out of the reach of those genial, superficial influences. He could only just mutter a word of assent here and there, then relapsed into his reverie, and eyed the fire thoughtfully, as if his destiny lay there revealed. Mr. Bazalgette, on the contrary, glowed more and more in manner as well as face, and, like many of his countrymen, seemed to imbibe friendship with each fresh glass of port.
At last, under the double influence of his real liking for David and of the Englishman-thawing Portuguese decoction, he gave his favorite a singular proof of friendship. It came about as follows. Observing that he had all the talk to himself, he fixed his eyes with an expression of paternal benevolence on his companion, and was silent in turn.
David looked up, as we all do when a voice ceases, and saw this mild gaze dwelling on him.
“Dodd, my boy, you don't say a word; what is the matter?”
“I am very bad company, sir, that is the truth.”
“Well, fill your glass, then, and I'll talk for you. I have got something to say for you, young gentleman.” David filled his glass and forced himself to attend; after a while no effort was needed.
“Dodd,” resumed the mature merchant, “I need hardly tell you that I have a particular regard for you; the reason is, you are a young man of uncommon merit.”
“Mr. Bazalgette! sir! I don't know which way to look when you praise me like that. It is your goodness; you overrate me.”
“No, I don't. I am a judge of men. I have seen thousands, and seen them too close to be taken in by their outside. You are the only one of my wife's friends that ever had the run of my study. What do you think of that, now?”
“I am very proud of it, sir; that is all I can find to say.”
“Well, young man, that same good opinion I have of you induces me to do something else, that I have never done for any of your predecessors.”
Mr. Bazalgette paused. David's heart beat. Quick as lightning it darted through his mind, “He is going to ask a favor for me. Promotion? Why not? He is a merchant. He has friends in the Company.'”
“I am going to interfere in your concerns, Dodd.”
“You are very good, sir.”
“Well, perhaps I am. I have to overcome a natural reluctance. But you are worth the struggle. I shall therefore go against the usages of the world, which I don't care a button for, and my own habits, which I care a great deal for, and give you, humph—a piece of friendly advice.”
David looked blank.
“Dodd, my boy, you are playing the fool in this house.”
David looked blanker.
“It is not your fault; you are led into it by one of those sweet creatures that love to reduce men to the level of their own wisdom. You are in love, or soon will be.”
David colored all over like a girl, and his face of distress was painful to see.
“You need not look so frightened; I am your friend, not your enemy. And do you really think others besides me have not seen what is going on? Now, Dodd, my dear fellow, I am an old man, and you are a young one. Moreover, I understand the lady, and you don't.”
“That is true, sir; I feel I cannot fathom her.”
“Poor fellow! Well, but I have known her longer than you.”
“That is true, sir.”
“And on closer terms of intimacy.”
“No doubt, sir.”
“Then listen to me. She is all very charming outside, and full of sensibility outside, but she has no more real feeling than a fish. She will go a certain length with you, or with any agreeable young man, but she can always stop where it suits her. No lady in England values position and luxury more than she does, or is less likely to sacrifice them to love, a passion she is incapable of. Here, then, is a game at which you run all the risk. No! leave her to puppies like Kenealy; they are her natural prey. You must not play such a heart as yours against a marble taw. It is not an even stake.”
David groaned audibly. His first thought was, “Eve says the same of her.” His second, “All the world is against her, poor thing.”
“Is she to bear the blame of my folly?”
“Why not? She is the cause of your folly. It began with her setting her cap at you.”
“No, sir, you do her wrong. She is modesty itself.”
“Ta! ta! ta! you are a sailor, green as sea-weed.”
“Mr. Bazalgette, as I am a gentleman, she never has encouraged me to love her as I do.”
“Your statement, sir, is one which becomes a gentleman—under the circumstances. But I happen to have watched her. It is a thing I have taken the trouble to do for some time past. It was my interest in you that made me curious, and apprehensive—on your account.”
“Then, if you have watched her, you must have seen her avoid me.”
“Pooh! pooh! that was drawing the bait; these old stagers can all do that.”
“Old stagers!” and David looked as if blasphemy had been uttered. Bazalgette wore a grin of infinite irony.
“Don't be shocked,” said he; “of course, I mean old in flirtation; no lady is old in years.”
“Sheis not, at all events.”
“It is agreed. There are legal fictions, and why not social ones?”
“I don't understand you, sir; and, in truth, it is all a puzzle to me. You don't seem angry with me?”
“Why, of course not, my poor fellow; I pity you.”
“Yet you discourage me, Mr. Bazalgette.”
“But not from any selfish motive. I want to spare you the mortification that is in store for you. Remember, I have seen theendof about a dozen of you.”
“Good Heavens! And what is the end of us?”
“The cold shoulder without a day's warning, and another fool set in your place, and the house door slammed in your face, etc., etc. Oh, with her there is but one step from flirtation to detestation. Not one of her flames is her friend at this moment.”
David hung his head, and his heart turned sick; there was a silence of some seconds, during which Bazalgette eyed him keenly. “Sir,” said David, at last, “your words go through me like a knife.”
“Never mind. It is a friendly surgeon's knife, not an assassin's.”
“Yet you say it is only out of regard for me you warn me so against her.”
“I repeat it.”
“Then, sir, if, by Heaven's mercy, you should be mistaken in her character—if, little as I deserve it, I should succeed in winning her regard—I might reckon on your permission—on your kind—support?”
“Hardly,” said Mr. Bazalgette, hastily. He then stared at the honest earnest face that was turned toward him. “Well,” said he, “you modest gentlemen have a marvelous fund of assurance at bottom. No, sir; with the exception of this piece of friendly advice I shall be strictly neutral. In return for it, if you should succeed, be so good as to take her out of the house, that is the only stipulation I venture to propose.”
“I should be sure to do that,” cried David, lifting his eyes to Heaven with rapture; “but I shall not have the chance.”
“So I keep telling you. You might as well hope to tempt a statue of the Goddess Flirtation. She infinitely prefers wealth and vanity to anything, even to vice.”
“Vice, sir! is that a term for us to apply to a lady like her, whom we are all unworthy to approach?” and David turned very red.
“Well,youneed not quarrel withmeabout her, asIdon't withyou.”
“Quarrel with you, dear sir? I hope I feel your kindness, and know my duty better; but, sir, I am agitated, and my heart is troubled; and surely you go beyond reason. She is not old enough to have had so many lovers.”
“Humph! she has made good use of her time.”
“Even could I believe that she, who seems to me an angel, is a coquette, still she cannot be hard and heartless as you describe her. It is impossible; it does not belong to her years.”
“You keep harping on her age, Dodd. Do you know her age? If you do, you have the advantage of me. I have not seen her baptismal register. Have you?”
“No, sir, but I know what she says is her age.”
“That is only evidence of what is not her age.”
“But there is her face, sir; that is evidence.”
“You have never seen her face; it is always got up to deceive the public.”
“I have seen it at the dawn, before any of you were up.”
“What is that? Halo! the deuce—where?”
“In the garden.”
“In the garden? Oh, she does not jump off her down-bed on to a flowerbed. She had been an hour at work on that face before ever the sun or you got leave to look on it.”
“I'll stake my head I tell her age within a year, Mr. Bazalgette.”
“No you will not, nor within ten years.”
“That is soon seen. I call her one-and-twenty.”
“One-and-twenty! You are mad! Why, she has had a child that would be fifteen now if it had lived.”
“Miss Lucy? A child? Fifteen years? What on earth do you mean?”
“What doyoumean? What has Miss Lucy to do with it? You know very well it is MY WIFE I am warning you against, not that innocent girl.”
At this David burst out in his turn. “YOUR WIFE! and have you so vile an opinion of me as to think I would eat your bread and tempt your wife under your roof. Oh, Mr. Bazalgette, is this the esteem you profess for me?”
“Go to the Devil!” shouted Bazalgette, in double ire at his own blunder and at being taken to task by his own Telemachus; he added, but in a very different tone, “You are too good for this world.”
The best things we say miss fire in conversation; only second-rate shots hit the mind through the ear. This, we will suppose, is why David derived no amusement or delectation from Mr. Bazalgette's inadvertent but admirablebon-mot.
“Go to the Devil! you are too good for this world.”
He merely rose, and said gravely, “Heaven forgive you your unjust suspicions, and God bless you for your other kindness. Good-by!”
“Why, where on earth are you going?”
“To stow away my things; to pack up, as they call it.”
“Come back! come back! why, what a terrible fellow you are; you make no allowances for metaphors. There, forgive me, and shake hands. Now sit down. I esteem you more than ever. You have come down from another age and a much better one than this. Now let us be calm, quiet, sensible, tranquil. Hallo!” (starting up in agitation), “a sudden light bursts on me. You are in love, and not with my wife; then it is my ward.”
“It is too late to deny it, sir.”
“That is far more serious than the other,” said Bazalgette, very gravely; “the old one would have been sure to cure you of your fancy for her, soon or late, but Lucy! Now, just look at that young buffer's eyes glaring at us like a pair of saucers.”
“I am not listening, papa; I haven't heard a word you and Mr. Dodd have said about naughty ladies. I have been such a good boy, minding my puzzle.”
“I wish he may not have been minding ours instead,” muttered his sire, and rang the bell, and ordered the servant to take away Master Reginald and bring coffee.
The pair sipped their coffee in dead silence. It was broken at last by David saying sadly and a little bitterly, “I fear, sir, your good opinion of me does not go the length of letting me come into your family.”
The merchant seemed during the last five minutes to have undergone some starching process, so changed was his whole manner now; so distant, dignified and stiff. “Mr. Dodd,” said he, “I am in a difficult position. Insincerity is no part of my character. When I say I have a regard for a man, I mean it. But I am the young lady's guardian, sir. She is a minor, though on the verge of her majority, and I cannot advise her to a match which, in the received sense, would be a very bad one for her. On the other hand, there are so many insuperable obstacles between you and her, that I need not combat my personal sentiments so far as to act against you; it would, indeed, hardly be just, as I have surprised your secret unfairly, though with no unfair intention. My promise not to act hostilely implies that I shall not reveal this conversation to Mrs. Bazalgette; if I did I should launch the deadliest of all enemies—irritated vanity—upon you, for she certainly looks on you as her plaything, not her niece's; and you would instantly be the victim of her spite, and of her influence over Lucy, if she discovered you have the insolence to escape her, and pursue another of her sex. I shall therefore keep silence and neutrality. Meantime, in the character, not of her guardian, but of your friend, I do strongly advise you not to think seriously of her. She will never marry you. She is a good, kind, amiable creature, but still she is a girl of the world—has all its lessons at her finger ends. Bless your heart, these meek beauties are as ambitious as Lucifer, and this one's ambition is fed by constant admiration, by daily matrimonial discussions with the old stager, and I believe by a good offer every now and then, which she refuses, because she is waiting for a better. Come, now, it only wants one good wrench—”
David interrupted him mildly: “Then, sir,” said he, thoughtfully; “the upshot is that, if she says 'Yes,' you won't say 'No.'”
The mature merchant stared.
“If,” said he, and with this short sentence and a sardonic grin he broke off trying
“To fetter flame with flaxen band.”
So nothing more was said or done that evening worth recording.
The next day, being the day of the masquerade, was devoted by the ladies to the making, altering, and trying on of dresses in their bedrooms. This turned the downstairs rooms so dark and unlovely that the gentlemen deserted the house one after the other. Kenealy and Talboys rode to see a cricket match ten miles off. Hardie drove into the town of —— and David paced the gravel walk in hopes that by keeping near the house he might find Lucy alone, for he was determined to know his fate and end his intolerable suspense.
He had paced the walk about an hour when fortune seemed to favor his desires. Lucy came out into the garden. David's heart beat violently. To his great annoyance, Mr. Fountain followed her out of the house and called her. She stopped, and he joined her; and very soon uncle and niece were engaged in a conversation which seemed so earnest that David withdrew to another part of the garden not to interfere with them.
He waited, and waited, and waited till they should separate; but no, they walked more and more slowly, and the conversation seemed to deepen in interest. David chafed. If he had known the nature of that conversation he would have writhed with torture as well as fretted with impatience, for there the hand of her he loved was sought in marriage before his eyes, and within a few steps of him. On such threads hangs human life. Had he been at the hall door instead of in the garden, he might have anticipated Mr. Fountain. As it was, Mr. Fountain stole the march on him.
TO-MORROW Lucy had agreed to sail, and in the boat Mr. Talboys was to ask and win her band. But from the first Mr. Fountain had never a childlike confidence in the scheme, and his understanding kept rebelling more and more.
“'The man that means to pop, pops,” said he; “one needn't go to sea—to pop. Terra firma is poppable on, if it is nothing else. These young fellows are like novices with a gun: the bird must be in a position or they can't shoot it—with their pop-guns. The young sparks in my day could pop them down flying. We popped out walking, popped out riding, popped dancing, popped psalm-singing. Talboys could not pop on horseback, because the lady's pony fidgeted, not his. Well, it will be so to-morrow. The boat will misbehave, or the wind will be easterly, and I shall be told southerly is the popping wind. The truth is, he is faint-hearted. His sires conquered England, and he is afraid of a young girl. I'll end this nonsense. He shall pop by proxy.”
In pursuance of this resolve, seeing his niece pass through the hall with her garden hat on, he called to her that he would get his hat and join her. They took one turn together almost in silence. Fountain was thinking how he should best open the subject, and Lucy waiting after her own fashion, for she saw by the old man's manner he had something to say to her.
“Lucy, my dear, I leave you in a day or two.”
“So soon, uncle.”
“And it depends on you whether I am to go away a happy or a disappointed old man.”
At these words, to which she was too cautious to reply in words, Lucy wore a puzzled air; but underneath it a keen observer might have noticed her cheek pale a little, a very little, and a quiver of suppressed agitation pass over her like a current of air in summer over a smooth lake.
Receiving no answer, Mr. Fountain went on to remind her that he was her only kinsman, Mrs. Bazalgette being her relation by half-blood only; and told her that, looking on himself as her father, he had always been anxious to see her position in life secured before his own death.
“I have been ambitious for you, my dear,” said he, “but not more so than your beauty and accomplishments, and your family name entitle us to be. Well, my ambition for you and my affection for you are both about to be gratified; at least, it now rests with you to gratify them. Will you be Mrs. Talboys?”
Lucy looked down, and said demurely, “What a question for a third person to put!”
“Should I put it if I had not a right?”
“I don't know.”'
“You ought to know, Lucy.”
“Mr. Talboys has authorized you, dear?”
“He has.”'
“Then this is a formal proposal from Mr. Talboy's?”
“Of course it is,” said the old gentleman, fearlessly, for Lucy's manner of putting these questions was colorless; nobody would have guessed what she was at.
She now drew her arm round her uncle's neck, and kissed him, which made him exult prematurely.
“Then, dear uncle,” said she lovingly, “you must tell Mr. Talboys that I thank him for the honor he does me, and that I decline.”
“Accept, you mean?”
“No I don't—ha! ha!”
Her laugh died rapidly away at sight of the effect of her words. Mr. Fountain started, and his face turned red and pale alternately.
“Refuse my friend—refuse Talboys in that way? Thoughtless girl, you don't know what you are doing. His family is all but noble. What am I saying? noble? why, half the House of Peers is sprung from the dregs of the people, and got there either by pettifogging in the courts of law, or selling consciences in the Lower House; and of the other half, that are gentlemen of descent, not two in twenty can show a pedigree like Talboys. And with that name a princely mansion—antiquity stamped on it—stands in its own park, in the middle of its vast estates, with title-deeds in black-letter, girl.”
“But, uncle, all this is encumbered—”
“It is false, whoever told you so. There is not a mortgage on any part of it—only a few trifling copyholds and pepper-corn rents.”
“You misunderstand me; I was going to say, it is encumbered with a gentleman for whom I could never feel affection, because he does not inspire me with respect.”
“Nonsense! he inspires universal respect.”
“It must be by his estates, then, not his character. You know, uncle, the world is more apt to ask, 'Whathashe, then whatishe?'”
“Heisa polished gentleman.”
“But not a well-bred one.”
“The best bred I ever saw.
“Then you never looked in a glass, dear. No, dear uncle, I will tell you. Mr. Talboys has seen the world, has kept good society, is at his ease (a great point), and is perfect in externals. But his good manners are—what shall I say?—coat deep. His politeness is not proof against temptation, however petty. The reason is, it is only a spurious politeness. Real politeness is founded and built on the golden rule, however delicate and artificial its superstructure may be. But, leaving out of the question the politeness of the heart, he has not in any sense the true art of good-breeding; he has only the common traditions. Put him in a novel situation, with no rules and examples to guide him, he would be maladroit as a school-boy. He is just the counterpart of Mr. Dodd in that respect. Poor Mr. Dodd is always shocking one by violating the commonest rules of society; but every now and then he bursts out with a flash of natural courtesy so bright, so refined, so original, yet so worthy of imitation, that you say to yourself this is genius—the genius of good-breeding.”
Mr. Fountain chafed with impatience during this tirade, in which he justly suspected an attempt to fritter away a serious discussion.
“Come off your hobby, Lucy,” cried he, “and speak to me like a woman and like my niece. If this is your objection, overcome it for my sake.”
“I would, dear,” said Lucy, “but it is only one of my objections, and by no means the most serious.”
On being invited to come at once to the latter, Lucy hesitated. “Would not that be unamiable on my part? Mr. Talboys has just paid me the highest compliment a gentleman can pay a lady; it is for me to decline him courteously, not abuse him to his friend and representative.”
“No humbug, Lucy, if you please; I am in no humor for it.”
“We should all be savages without alittleof it.”
“I am waiting.”
“Then pledge me your word of honor no word of what I now say to the disadvantage of poor Mr. Talboys shall ever reach him.”
“You may take your oath of that.”
“Then he is a detractor, a character I despise.”
“Who does he detract from? I never heard him.”
“From all his superiors—in other words, from everybody he meets. Did you ever know him fail to sneer at Mr. Hardie?”
“Oh, that is the offense, is it?”
“No, it is the same with others; there, the other day, Mr. Dodd joined us on horseback. He did not dress for the occasion. He had no straps on. He came in a hurry to have our society, not to cut a dash. But there was Mr. Talboys, who can only do this one thing well, and who, thanks to his servant, had straps on, sneering the whole time at Mr. Dodd, who has mastered a dozen far more difficult and more honorable accomplishments than putting on straps and sitting on horses. But he is always backbiting and sneering; he admires nothing and nobody.”
“He has admired you ever since he saw you.”
“What! has he never sneered at me?”
“Never! ungrateful girl, never.”
“How humiliating! He takes me for his inferior. His superiors he always sneers at. If he had seen anything good or spirited in me, he could not have helped detracting from me. Is not this a serious reason—that I despise the person who now solicits my love, honor and obedience? Well, then, there is another—a stronger still. But perhaps you will call it a woman's reason.”
“I know. You don't like him—that is, you fancy you don't, and can't.”
“No, uncle, it is not that I don't like him. It is that I HATE HIM.”
“You hate him?” and Mr. Fountain looked at her to see if it was his niece Lucy who was uttering words so entirely out of character.
“I am but a poor hater. I have but little practice; but, with all the power of hating I do possess, I hate that Mr. Talboys. Oh, how delicious it is to speak one's mind out nice and rudely. It is a luxury I seldom indulge in. Yes, uncle,” said Lucy, clinching her white teeth, “I hate that man, and I did hope his proposal would come from himself; then there would have been nothing to alloy my quiet satisfaction at mortifying one who is so ready to mortify others. But no, he has bewitched you; and you take his part, and you look vexed; so all my pleasure is turned to pain.”
“It is all self-deception,” gasped Fountain, in considerable agitation; “you girls are always deceiving yourselves: you none of you hate any man—unless you love him. He tells me you have encouraged him of late. You had better tell me that is a lie.”
“A lie, uncle; what an expression! Mr. Talboys is a gentleman; he would not tell a falsehood, I presume.”
“Aha! it is true, then, you have encouraged him?”
“A little.”
“There, you see; the moment we come from the generalities to facts, what a simpleton you are proved to be. Come, now, did you or did you not agree to go in a boat with him?”
“I did, dear.”
“That was a pretty strong measure, Lucy.”
“Very strong, I think. I can tell you I hesitated.”
“Now you see how you have mistaken your own feelings.”
Lucy hung her head. “Oh uncle, you call me simple—and look at you! fancy not seeing why I agreed to go—dans cette galere.It was that Mr. Talboys might declare himself, and so I might get rid of him forever. I saw that if I could not bring him to the point, he would dangle about me for years, and perhaps, at last, succeed in irritating me to rudeness. But now, of course, I shall stay on shore with my uncle to-morrow.Qu'irais je faire dana cette galere?you have done it all for me. Oh, my dear, dear uncle, I am so grateful to you!”
She showed symptoms of caressing Mr. Fountain, but he recoiled from her angrily. “Viper! but no, this is not you. There is a deeper hand than you in all this. This is that Mrs. Bazalgette's doings.”
“No, indeed, uncle.”
“Give me a proof it is not.”
“With pleasure; any proof that is in my power.”
“Then promise me not to marry Mr. Hardie.”
“My dear uncle, Mr. Hardie has never asked me.”
“But he will.”
“What right have I to say so? What right have I to constitute Mr. Hardie my admirer? I would not for all the world put it into any gentleman's power to say, 'Why say “no,” Miss Fountain, before I have asked you to say “yes”?' Oh!”
And, with this, Lucy put her face into her hands, but they were not large enough to hide the deep blush that suffused her whole face at the bare idea of being betrayed into an indelicacy of this sort.
“How could he say that? how could he know?” said Mr. Fountain, pettishly.
“Uncle, I cannot, I dare not. You and my aunt hate one another; so you might be tempted to tell her, and she would be sure to tell him. Besides, I cannot; my very instinct revolts from it. It would not be modest. I love you, uncle. Let me know your wishes, and have some faith in my affection, but pray do not press me further. Oh, what have I done, to be spoken of with so many gentlemen!”
Lucy was in evident agitation, and the blushes glowed more and more round her snowy hands and between her delicate fingers; and there is something so sacred about the modesty alarmed of an intelligent young woman—it is a feeling which, however fantastical, is so genuine in her, and so manifestly intense beyond all we can ourselves feel of the kind, that no man who is not utterly stupid or depraved can see it without a certain awe. Even Mr. Fountain, who looked on Lucy's distress as transcendent folly with a dash of hypocrisy, could not go on making her cheek burn so. “There! there!” cried he, “don't torment yourself, Lucy. I will spare your fanciful delicacy, though you have no pity on me—on your poor old uncle, whose heart you will break if you decline this match.”
At these words, and the old man's change from anger to sadness, Lucy looked up in dismay, and the vivid color died, like a retiring wave, out of her cheek.
“You look surprised, Lucy. What! do you think this will not be a heartbreaking disappointment to me? If you knew how I have schemed for it—what I have done and endured to bring it about! To quarter the arms of Fontaine and Talboys! I put by the 5,000 pounds directly, and as much more of my own, that you should not go into that noble family without a proper settlement. It was the dream of my heart; I could have died contented the next hour. More fool I to care for anybody but myself. Your selfish people escape these bitter disappointments. Well, it is a lesson. From this hour I will live for myself and care for nobody, for nobody cares for me.”
These words, uttered with great agitation, and, I believe, with perfect sincerity, on his own unselfishness and hard fate, were terrible to Lucy. She wreathed her arms suddenly round him.
“Oh, uncle,” she cried, despairingly, “kill me! send me to Heaven! send me to my mother, but don't stab me with such bitter words;” and she trembled with an emotion so much more powerful and convulsing than his, in which temper had a large share, that she once more cowed him.
“There! there!” he muttered, “I don't want to kill you, child, God knows, or to hurt you in any way.”
Lucy trembled, and tried to smile. The good nature, which was the upper crust of this man's character, got the better of him.
“There! there! don't distress yourself so. I know who I have to thank for all this.”
“She has not the power,” said Lucy, in a faint voice, “to make me ungrateful to you.”
Mind is more rapid than lightning. At this moment, in the middle of a sentence, it flashed across Lucy that her aunt had convinced her, sore against her will, that there was a strong element of selfishness in Mr. Fountain. “But it is that he deceives himself,” thought Lucy. “He would sacrifice my happiness to his hobby, and think he has done it for love of me.” Enlightened by this rapid reflection, she did not say to him as one of his own sex would, “Look in your own heart, and you will see that all this is not love of me, but of your own schemes.” Oh, dear, no, that would not have been the woman. She took him round the neck, and, fixing her sapphire eyes lovingly on his, she said, “It is for love of me you set your heart on this great match? You wish to see me well settled in the world, and, above all, happy?”
“Of course it is. I told you so. What other object can I have?”
“Then, if you saw me wretched, and degraded in my own eyes, your heart would bleed for your poor niece—too late. Well, uncle, I love you, too, and I save you this day from remorse. Oh, think what it must be to hate and despise a man, and link yourself body and soul to that man for life. Oh, think and shudder with me. I have a quick eye. I have seen your lip curl with contempt when that fool has been talking—ah! you blush. You are too much his superior in everything but fortune not to despise him at heart. See the thing as it is. Speak to me as you would if my mother stood here beside us, uncle, and to speak to me, you must look her in the face. Could you say to me before her, 'I love you; marry a man we both despise!'?”
Mr. Fountain made no answer. He was disconcerted. Nothing is so easy to resist as logic solo. We see it, as a general rule, resisted with great success in public and private every day; but when it comes in good company, a voice of music, an angel face, gentle, persuasive caresses, and imploring eyes, it ceases to revolt the understanding. And so, caught in his own trap, foiled, baffled, soothed, caressed, all in one breath, Mr. Fountain hung his head, and could not immediately reply.
Lucy followed up her advantage. “No,” cried she; “say to me, 'I love you, Lucy; marry nobody; stay with your uncle, and find your happiness in contributing to his comfort.'”
“What is the use my saying that, when I have got Mother Bazalgette against me, and her shopkeeper?”
“Never mind, uncle, you say it, and time will show whether your influence is small with me, and my affections small for you”; and she looked in his face with glistening eyes.
“Well, then,” said he, “I do say it, and I suppose that means I must urge you no more about poor Talboys.”
A shower of kisses descended upon him that moment. Moral: Lose no time in sealing a good bargain.
“Come, now, Lucy, you must do me a favor.”
“Oh, thank you! thank you! what is it?”
“Ah! but it is about Talboys too.”
“Never mind,” faltered Lucy, “if it is anything short of—” (full stop).
“It is a long way short of that. Look here, Lucy, I must tell you the truth. He intends to ask your hand himself: he confided this to me, but he never authorized me to commit him as I have done, so that this conversation cannot be acted on: it must be a secret between you and me.”
“Oh, dear! and I thought I had got rid of him so nicely.”
“Don't be alarmed,” groaned Fountain; “such matches as this can always be dropped; the difficulty is to bring them on. All I ask of you, then, is not to make mischief between me and my friend, the proudest man in England. If you don't value his friendship, I do. You must not let him know I have got him insulted by a refusal. For instance, you had better go out sailing with him to-morrow as if nothing had passed. Will your affection for me carry you as far as that?”
The proposal was wormwood to Lucy. So she smiled and said eagerly: “Is that all? Why, I will do it with pleasure, dear. It is not like being in the same boat with him for life, you know. Can you give me nothing more than that to do for you?”
“No; it does not do to test people's affection too severely. You have shown me that. Go on with your walk, Lucy. I shall go in.”
“May I not come with you?”
“No; my head aches with all this; if I don't mind I shall eat no dinner. Agitation and vexation, don't agree with me. I have carefully avoided them all my life. I must go in and lie down for an hour”; and he left her rather abruptly.
She looked after him; her subtle eye noticed directly that he walked a little more feebly than usual. She ascribed this to his disappointment, justly perhaps, for at his age the body has less elastic force to resist a mental blow. The sight of him creeping away disappointed, and leaning heavier than usual on his stick, knocked at her cool but affectionate heart. She began to cry bitterly. When he was quite out of sight, she turned and paced the gravel slowly and sadly. It was new to her to refuse her uncle anything, still more strange to have to refuse him a serious wish. She was prepared, thoroughly prepared, for the proposal, but not to find the old man's heart so deeply set upon it. A wild impulse came over her to call him back and sacrifice herself; but the high spirit and intelligence that lay beneath her tenderness and complaisance stood firm. Yet she felt almost guilty, and very, very unhappy, as we call it at her age. She kept sighing; “Poor uncle!” and paced the gravel very slowly, hanging her sweet head, and crying as she went.
At the end of the walk David Dodd stood suddenly before her. He came flurried on his own account, but stopped thunder-struck at her tears. “What is the matter, Miss Lucy?”' said he, anxiously.
“Oh, nothing, Mr. Dodd;” and they flowed afresh.
“Can I do anything for you, Miss Lucy?”
“No, Mr. Dodd.”
“Won't you tell me what is the matter? Are you not friends with me to-day?”
“I was put out by a very foolish circumstance, Mr. Dodd, and it is one with which I shall not trouble you, nor any person of sense. I prefer to retain your sympathy by not revealing the contemptible cause of my babyish—There!” She shook her head proudly, as if tears were to be dispersed like dewdrops. “There!” she repeated; and at this second effort she smiled radiantly.
“It is like the sun coming out after a shower,” cried David rapturously.
“That reminds me I must begoingin, Mr. Dodd.”
“Don't say that, Miss Lucy. What for?”
“To arrange another shower, one of pearls, on a dress I am to wear to-night.”
David sighed. “Ah! Miss Lucy, at sight of me you always make for the hall door.”
Lucy colored. “Oh, do I? I really was not aware of that. Then I suppose I am afraid of you. Is that what you would insinuate? “'
“No, Miss Lucy, you are not afraid of me; but I sometimes fear—” and he hesitated.
“It must blow very hard that day,” said Lucy, with a world of politeness. Her tongue was too quick for him. He found it so, and announced the fact after his fashion. “I can't tack fast enough to follow you,” said he despondently.
“But you are not required to follow me,” replied this amiable eel, with hypocritical benignity; “I am going to my aunt's room to do what I told you. I leave you in charge of the quarter-deck.” So saying, she walked slowly up the steps, and left David standing sorrowfully on the gravel. At the top step Miss Lucy turned and inquired gently when he was to sail. He told her the ship was expected to anchor off the fort to-morrow, but she would not sail till she had got all her passengers on board.
“Oh!” said Lucy, with an air of reflection. She then leaned in an easy posture against the wall, and, whether it was that she relented a little, or that, having secured her retreat, she was now indifferent to flight, certain it is that she did after her own fashion what many a daughter of Eve has done before her, and many a duchess and many a dairymaid will do after La Fountain and I are gone from earth. A minute ago it had been, “She must go directly.” The more opposition to her departure, the more inexorable the necessity for her going; opposition withdrawn, and the door open, she stayed no end.
Full twenty minutes did that young lady stand there unsolicited, and chat with David Dodd in the kindest, sweetest, most amicable way imaginable.
She little knew she had an auditor—a female auditor, keen as a lynx.
All this day Reginald George Bazalgette, Esq., might have been defined “a pest in search of a playmate.” Tom had got a holiday. Lucy only came out of her workshop to be seized by Mr. Fountain. David, who was waiting in the garden for Lucy, begged Reginald to excuse him for once. The young gentleman had recourse as apis allerto his mamma. He invaded her bedroom, and besought her piteously to play at battledoor. That lady, sighing deeply at being taken from her dress, consented. Her soul not being in it, she played very badly. Her cub did not fail to tell her so. “Why, I can keep up a hundred with Mr. Dodd,” said he.
“Oh, we all know Mr. Dodd is perfection,” said the lady with a sneer. She was piqued with David. He had gone and left her in a brutal way, to make his apologies to Lucy.
“No, he is not,” said Reginald. “I have found him out. He is as unjust as the rest of them.”
“Dear me! and, pray, what has he done?”
“I will tell you, mamma, if you will promise not to tell papa, because he told me not to listen, and I didn't listen, mamma, because, you know, a gentleman always keeps his word; but they talked so loud the words would come into my ear; I could not keep them out. Mamma, are there any naughty ladies here?”
“No, my dear.”
“Then what did papa mean, warning Mr. Dodd against one?”
Mrs. Bazalgette began to listen as he wished.
“Oh, he called her all the names. He said she was a statue of flirtation.”
“Who? Lucy?”
“Lucy? no! the naughty lady—the one that had twelve husbands. He kept warning him, and warning him, and then Mr. Dodd and papa they began to quarrel almost, because Mr. Dodd said the naughty lady was quite young, and papa said she was ever so old. Mr. Dodd said she was twenty-one. But papa told him she must be more than that, because she had a child that would be fifteen years old; only it died. How old would sister Emily be if she was alive, mamma? La, mamma, how pretty you are: you have got red cheeks like Lucy—redder, oh, ever so much redder—and in general they are so pale before dinner. Let me kiss you, mamma. I do love the ladies when their cheeks are red.”
“There! there! now go on, dear; tell me some more.”
“It is very interesting, isn't it, dear mamma?”
“It is amusing, at all events.”
“No, it is not amusing—at least, what came after, isn't: it is wicked, it is unjust, it is abominable.”
“Tell me, dear.”
“It turned out it wasn't the naughty lady Mr. Dodd was in love for, and who do you think he is in love of?”
“I have not an idea.”
“Nonsense, child.”
“No, no, mamma, it is not. He owned it plump.”
“Are you quite sure, love?”
“Upon my honor.”
“What did they say next?”
“Oh, next papa began to talk his fine words that I don't know what the meaning of them is one bit. But Mr. Dodd, he could make them out, I suppose, for he said, 'So, then, the upshot is—' There, now, what is upshot? I don't know. How stupid grown-up people are; they keep using words that one doesn't know the meaning of.”
“Never mind, love! tell me. What cameafterupshot?” said Mrs. Bazalgette, soothingly, with great apparent calmness and flashing eye.
“How kind you are to-day, mamma! That is twice you have called me love, and three times dear; only think. I should love you if you were always so kind, and your cheeks as red as they are now.”
“Never mind my cheeks. What did Mr. Dodd say? Try and remember—come—'The upshot was—'”
“The upshot was—what was the upshot? I forget. No, I remember; the upshot was, if Lucy said 'yes,' papa would not say 'no;' that meant to marry him. Now didn't you promise me her ever so long ago—the day you and I agreed if I went a whole day without being naughty once I should have her for ever and ever? and I did go.”
“Go to Lucy's room, and tell her to come to me,” said Mrs. Bazalgette, in a stern, thoughtful voice, which startled poor Reginald, coming so soon after thecalinerie.However, he told her it was no use his going to Lucy's room, for she was out in the garden; he had seen her there walking with Mr. Fountain. Reginald then ran to the window which commanded the garden, to look for Lucy. He had scarcely reached it when he began to squeak wildly, “Come here! come here! come here!” Mrs. Bazalgette was at the window in a moment, and lo! at the end of the garden, walking slowly side by side, were Lucy and Mr. Dodd.
Ridiculous as it may appear, a pang of jealousy shot through the married flirt's heart that made her almost feel sick. This was followed at the interval of half a second by as pretty a flame of hatred as ever thespretoe injuria formoelighted up in a coquette's heart. Doubt drove in its smaller sting besides, and at sight of the couple she resolved to have better evidence than Reginald's, especially as to Lucy's sentiments. The plan she hit upon was effective, but vulgar, and must not be witnessed by a boy of inconvenient memory and mistimed fluency. She got rid of him with high-principled dexterity. “Reginald,” said she, sadly, “you are a naughty boy, a disobedient boy, to listen when your papa told you not, and to tell me a pack of falsehoods. I must either tell your papa, or I must punish you myself; I prefer to do it myself, he would whip you so”; with this she suddenly opened her dressing-room door, and pushed the terrible infant in, and locked the door. She then told him through the keyhole he had better cease yelling, because, if he kept quiet, his punishment would only last half an hour, and she flew downstairs. There was a large hot-house with two doors, one of which came very near to the house door that opened into the garden. Mrs. Bazalgette entered the hothouse at the other end, and, hidden by the exotic trees and flowers, made rapidly for the door Lucy and David must pass. She found it wide open. She half shut it, and slipped behind it, listening like a hare and spying like a hawk through the hinges. And, strange as it may appear, she had an idea she should make a discovery. As the finished sportsman watches a narrow ride in the wood, not despairing by a snap-shot to bag his hare as she crosses it, though seen but for a moment, so the Bazalgette felt sure that, as the couple passed her ambush, something, either in the two sentences they might utter, or, more probably, in their tones and general manner, would reveal to one of her experience on what footing they were.
A shrewd calculation! But things will be things. They take such turns, I might without exaggeration say twists, that calculation is baffled, and prophecy dissolved into pitch and toss. This thing turned just as not expected.Primo,instead of getting only a snap-shot, Mrs. Bazalgette heard every word of a long conversation; and,secundo,when she had heard it she could not tell for certain on what footing the lady and gentleman were. At first, from their familiarity, she inclined to think they were lovers; but, the more she listened, the more doubtful she seemed. Lucy was the chief speaker, and what she said showed an undisguised interest in her companion; but the subject accounted in great measure for that; she was talking of his approaching voyage, of the dangers and hardships of his profession, and of his return two years hence, his chances of promotion, etc. But here was no proof positive of love; they were acquaintances of some standing. Then Lucy's manner struck her as rather amicable than amorous. She was calm, kind, self-possessed, and almost voluble. As for David, he only got in a word here and there. When he did, there was something so different in his voice from anything he had ever bestowed onher,that she hated him, and longed to stick scissors into him from the rear, unseen. At last Lucy suddenly recollected, or seemed to recollect, she was busy, and retired hastily—so hastily that David saw too late his opportunity lost. But the music of her voice had so charmed him that he did not like to interrupt it even to speak of that which was nearest his heart. David sighed deeply, standing there alone.
Mrs. Bazalgette clinched her little fists and looked round for the means of vengeance. David went down on his knees. La Bazalgette glared through the crack, and wondered what on earth he was at now. Oh! he was praying. “He loves her: he is eccentricity itself; so he is praying for her, and onmydoorsteps” (the householder wounded as well as the flirt). It was lucky she had not “a thunderbolt in her eye”—Shakespeare, or a celestial messenger of the wrong sort would have descended on the devout mariner. It was more than Mrs. Bazalgette could bear: she had now and then, not often, unladylike impulses. One of them had set her crouching behind the door of an outhouse, and listening through a crack; and now she had another, an irresistible one: it was, to take that empty flower-pot, fling it as hard as ever she could at the devotee, then shut the door quick, fly out at the other door, and leave her faithless swain in the agony of knowing himself detected and exposed by some unknown and undiscoverable enemy.
For a vengeance extemporized in less than half a second this was very respectable. Well, she clawed the flower-pot noiselessly, put her other hand on the door, cast a hasty glance at the means of retreat, and—things took another twist: she heard the rustle of a coming gown, and drew back again, and out came Lucy, and nearly ran over David, who was not on his knees after all, but down on his nose, prostrate Orientally. The fact is, Lucy, among her other qualities, good and bad, was a born housewife, and solicitously careful of certain odds and ends called property. She found she had dropped one of her gloves in the garden, and she came back in a state of disproportionate uneasiness to find it, and nearly ran over David Dodd.
“Whatareyou doing, Mr. Dodd?”
David arose from his Oriental position, and, being a young man whose impulse always was to tell the simple truth, replied, “I was kissing the place where you stood so long.”
He did not feel he had done anything extraordinary, so he gave her this information composedly; but her face was scarlet in an instant; and he, seeing that, began to blush too. For once Lucy's tact was baffled; she did not know what on earth to say, and she stood blushing like a girl of fifteen.
Then she tried to turn it off.
“Mr. Dodd, how can you be so ridiculous?” said she, affecting humorous disdain.
But David was not to be put down now; he was launched.
“I am not ridiculous for loving and worshiping you, for you are worthy of even more love than any human heart can hold.”
“Oh, hush, Mr. Dodd. I must not hear this.”
“Miss Lucy, I can't keep it any longer—you must, you shall hear me. You can despise my love if you will, but youshallknow it before you reject it.”
“Mr. Dodd, you have every right to be heard, but let me persuade you not to insist. Oh, why did I come back?”
“The first moment I saw you, Miss Lucy, it was a new life to me. I never looked twice at any girl before. It is not your beauty only—oh, no! it is your goodness—goodness such as I never thought was to be found on earth. Don't turn your head from me; I know my defects; could I look on you and not see them? My manners are blunt and rude—oh, how different from yours! but you could soon make me a fine gentleman, I love you so. And I am only the first mate of an Indiaman; but I should be a captain next voyage, Miss Lucy, and a sailor like me has no expenses; all he has is his wife's. The first lady in the land will not be petted as you will, if you will look kindly on me. Listen to me,” trying to tempt her. “No, Miss Lucy, I have nothing to offer you worth your acceptance, only my love. No man ever loved woman as I love you; it is not love, it is worship, it is adoration! Ah! she is going to speak to me at last!”
Lucy presented at this moment a strange contrast of calmness and agitation. Her bosom heaved quickly, and she was pale, but her voice was calm, and, though gentle, decided.
“I know you love me, Mr. Dodd, and I feared this. I have tried to save you the mortification of being declined by one who, in many things, is your inferior. I have even been rude and unkind to you. Forgive me for it. I meant it kindly. I regret it now. Mr. Dodd, I thank you for the honor you do me, but I cannot accept your love.” There was a pause, but David's tongue seemed glued to the roof of his mouth. He was not surprised, yet he was stupefied when the blow came.
At last he gasped out, “You love some other man?”
Lucy was silent.
“Answer me, for pity's sake; give me something to help me.”
“You have no right to ask me such a question, but—I have no attachment, Mr. Dodd.”
“Ah! then one word more. Is it because you cannot love me, or because I am poor, and only first mate of an Indiaman?”
“ThatI will not answer. You have no right to question a lady why she—Stay! you wish to despise me. Well, why not, if that will cure you of this unfortunate—Think what you please of me, Mr. Dodd,” murmured Lucy, sadly.
“Ah! you know I can't,” cried David, despairingly.
“I know that you esteem me more than I deserve. Well, I esteem you, Mr. Dodd. Why, then, can we not be friends? You have only to promise me you will never return to this subject—come!”
“Me promise not to love you! What is the use? Me be your friend, and nothing more, and stand looking on at the heaven that is to be another's, and never to be mine? It is my turn to decline. Never. Betrothed lovers or strangers, but nothing between! It would drive me mad. Away from you, and out of sight of your sweet face, I may make shift to live, and go through my duty somehow, for my mother's and sister's sake.”
“You are wiser than I was, Mr. Dodd. Yes, we must part.”
“Of course we must. I have got my answer, and a kinder one than I deserve; and now what is the polite thing for me to do, I wonder?” David said this with terrible bitterness.
“You frighten me,” sighed Lucy.
“Don't you be frightened, sweet angel; there! I have been used to obey orders all my life, and I am like a ship tossed in the breakers, and you are calm—calm as death. Give me my orders, for God's sake.”
“It is not for me to command you, Mr. Dodd. I have forfeited that right. But listen to her who still asks to be your friend, and she will tell you what will be best for you, and kindest and most generous to her.”
“Tell me about that last; the other is a waste of words.”
“I will, then. Your sister is somewhere in the neighborhood.”
“She is at ——; how did you know?”
“I saw her on your arm. I am glad she is so near—Oh, so glad! Bid my uncle and aunt good-by; make some excuse. Go to your sister at once.Sheloves you. She is better than I am, if you will but see us as we really are. Go to her at once,” faltered Lucy, who disliked Eve, and Eve her.
“I will! I will! I have thought too little of my own flesh and blood. Shall I go now?”
“Yes,” murmured Lucy softly, trying to disarm the fatal word. “Forget me—and—forgive me!” and, with this last word scarce audible, she averted her face, and held out her hand with angelic dignity, modesty and pity.
The kind words and the gentle action brought down the stout heart that had looked death in the face so often without flinching. “Forgive you, sweet angel!” he cried; “I pray Heaven to bless you, and to make you as happy as I am desolate for your sake. Oh, you show me more and more what I lose this day. God bless you! God bless—” and David's heart filled to choking, and he burst out sobbing despairingly, and the hot tears ran suddenly from his eyes over her hand as he kissed and kissed it. Then, with an almost savage feeling of shame (for these were not eyes that were wont to weep), he uttered one cry of despair and ran away, leaving her pale and panting heavily.