mamma! you must not say that. You must think that he is good enough for anything.”
“I will think that he is very good.”
“Who could be better? And then, when you remember all that he is to give up for my sake!— And what can I do for him in return? What have I got to give him?”
Neither Mrs Dale nor Bell could look at the matter in this light, thinking that Lily gave quite as much as she received. But they both declared that Crosbie was perfect, knowing that by such assurances only could they now administer to Lily’s happiness; and Lily, between them, was made perfect in her happiness, receiving all manner of encouragement in her love, and being nourished in her passion by the sympathy and approval of her mother and sister.
And then had come that visit from Johnny Eames. As the poor fellow marched out of the room, giving them no time to say farewell, Mrs Dale and Bell looked at each other sadly; but they were unable to concoct any arrangement, for Lily had run across the lawn and was already on the ground before the window.
“As soon as we got to the end of the shrubbery there were Uncle Christopher and Bernard close to us; so I told Adolphus he might go on by himself.”
“And who do you think has been here?” said Bell. But Mrs Dale said nothing. Had time been given to her to use her own judgment, nothing should have been said at that moment as to Johnny’s visit.
“Has anybody been here since I went? Whoever it was didn’t stay very long.”
“Poor Johnny Eames,” said Bell. Then the colour came up into Lily’s face, and she bethought herself in a moment that the old friend of her young days had loved her, that he, too, had had hopes as to his love, and that now he had heard tidings which would put an end to such hopes. She understood it all in a moment, but understood also that it was necessary that she should conceal such understanding.
“Dear Johnny!” she said. “Why did he not wait for me?”
“We told him you were out,” said Mrs Dale. “He will be here again before long, no doubt.”
“And he knows—?”
“Yes; I thought you would not object to my telling him.”
“No, mamma; of course not. And he has gone back to Guestwick?”
There was no answer given to this question, nor were there any further words then spoken about Johnny Eames. Each of these women understood exactly how the matter stood, and each knew that the others understood it. The young man was loved by them all, but not loved with that sort of admiring affection which had been accorded to Mr Crosbie. Johnny Eames could not have been accepted as a suitor by their pet. Mrs Dale and Bell both felt that. And yet they loved him for his love, and for that distant, modest respect which had restrained him from any speech regarding it. Poor Johnny! But he was young,—hardly as yet out of his hobbledehoyhood,—and he would easily recover this blow, remembering, and perhaps feeling to his advantage, some slight touch of its passing romance. It is thus women think of men who love young and love in vain.
But Johnny Eames himself, as he rode back to Guestwick, forgetful of his spurs, and with his gloves stuffed into his pocket, thought of the matter very differently. He had never promised to himself any success as to his passion for Lily, and had, indeed, always acknowledged that he could have no hope; but now, that she was actually promised to another man, and as good as married, he was not the less brokenhearted because his former hopes had not been high. He had never dared to speak to Lily of his love, but he was conscious that she knew it, and he did not now dare to stand before her as one convicted of having loved in vain. And then, as he rode back, he thought also of his other love, not with many of those pleasant thoughts which Lotharios and Don Juans may be presumed to enjoy when they contemplate their successes. “I suppose I shall marry her, and there’ll be an end of me,” he said to himself, as he remembered a short note which he had once written to her in his madness. There had been a little supper at Mrs Roper’s, and Mrs Lupex and Amelia had made the punch. After supper, he had been by some accident alone with Amelia in the dining-parlour; and when, warmed by the generous god, he had declared his passion, she had shaken her head mournfully, and had fled from him to some upper region, absolutely refusing his proffered embrace. But on the same night, before his head had found its pillow, a note had come to him, half repentant, half affectionate, half repellent,—”If, indeed, he would swear to her that his love was honest and manly, then, indeed, she might even yet,—see him through the chink of the doorway with the purport of telling him that he was forgiven.” Whereupon, a perfidious pencil being near to his hand, he had written the requisite words. “My only object in life is to call you my own for ever.” Amelia had her misgivings whether such a promise, in order that it might be used as legal evidence, should not have been written in ink. It was a painful doubt; but nevertheless she was as good as her word, and saw him through the chink, forgiving him for his impetuosity in the parlour with, perhaps, more clemency than a mere pardon required. “By George! how well she looked with her hair all loose,” he said to himself, as he at last regained his pillow, still warm with the generous god. But now, as he thought of that night, returning on his road from Allington to Guestwick, those loose, floating locks were remembered by him with no strong feeling as to their charms. And he thought also of Lily Dale, as she was when he had said farewell to her on that day before he first went up to London. “I shall care more about seeing you than anybody,” he had said; and he had often thought of the words since, wondering whether she had understood them as meaning more than an assurance of ordinary friendship. And he remembered well the dress she had then worn. It was an old brown merino, which he had known before, and which, in truth, had nothing in it to recommend it specially to a lover’s notice. “Horrid old thing!” had been Lily’s own verdict respecting the frock, even before that day. But she had hallowed it in his eyes, and he would have been only too happy to have worn a shred of it near his heart, as a talisman. How wonderful in its nature is that passion of which men speak when they acknowledge to themselves that they are in love. Of all things, it is, under one condition, the most foul, and under another, the most fair. As that condition is, a man shows himself either as a beast or as a god! And so we will let poor Johnny Eames ride back to Guestwick, suffering much in that he had loved basely—and suffering much, also, in that he had loved nobly.
Lily, as she had tripped along through the shrubbery, under her lover’s arm, looking up, every other moment, into his face, had espied her uncle and Bernard. “Stop,” she had said, giving him a little pull at the arm; “I won’t go on. Uncle is always teasing me with some old-fashioned wit. And I’ve had quite enough of you to-day, sir. Mind you come over tomorrow before you go to your shooting.” And so she had left him.
We may as well learn here what was the question in dispute between the uncle and cousin, as they were walking there on the broad gravel path behind the Great House. “Bernard,” the old man had said, “I wish this matter could be settled between you and Bell.”
“Is there any hurry about it, sir?”
“Yes, there is hurry; or, rather, as I hate hurry in all things, I would say that there is ground for despatch. Mind, I do not wish to drive you. If you do not like your cousin, say so.”
“But I do like her; only I have a sort of feeling that these things grow best by degrees. I quite share your dislike to being in a hurry.”
“But time enough has been taken now. You see, Bernard, I am going to make a great sacrifice of income on your behalf.”
“I am sure I am very grateful.”
“I have no children, and have therefore always regarded you as my own. But there is no reason why my brother Philip’s daughter should not be as dear to me as my brother Orlando’s son.”
“Of course not, sir; or, rather, his two daughters.”
“You may leave that matter to me, Bernard. The younger girl is going to marry this friend of yours, and as he has a sufficient income to support a wife, I think that my sister-in-law has good reason to be satisfied by the match. She will not be expected to give up any part of her small income, as she must have