tenderness. His heart smote him, and his remorse strengthened his determination.     

       “I want to speak to you after breakfast,” he told her.     

       His manner was so significant that a sudden gleam of hope flashed into her mind. Could it be that he had seen, that he would be generous? She banished the shameful hope. She would not accept generosity at the expense of pain to him.     

       Miss Bussey, professing to find bed the best place in the world, was in the habit of taking her breakfast there. The lovers were alone, and, the meal ended, they passed together into the conservatory. Mary sat down and John leant against the glass door opposite her.     

       “Well?” said she, smiling at him.     

       It suddenly struck John that, in a scene of this nature, it ill-befitted him to stand three yards from the lady. He took a chair and drew it close beside her. The thing had to be done and it should be done properly.     

       “We’ve made a mistake, Mary,” he announced, taking her hand and speaking in a rallying tone.     

       “A mistake!” she cried; “oh, how?”     

       “In fixing our marriage——.”     

       “So soon?”     

       “My darling!” said John (and it was impossible to deny admiration to the tone he said it in), “no. So late! What are we waiting for? Why are we wasting all this precious time?”     

       Mary could not speak, but consternation passed for an appropriate confusion, and John pursued his passionate pleadings. As Mary felt his grasp and looked into his honest eyes, her duty lay plain before her. She would not stoop to paltry excuses on the score of clothes, invitations, or such trifles. She had made up her mind to the thing; surely she ought to do it in the way most gracious and most pleasing to her lover.     

       “If Aunt consents,” she murmured at last, “do as you like, John dear,” and the embrace which each felt to be inevitable at such a crisis passed between them.     

 Prev. P 17/197 next