Page:Bleak House.djvu/783

 “No!” said I.

We went out of the porch; and he showed me written over it,

He led me to a seat among the leaves close by, and sitting down beside me, and taking my hand in his, spoke to me thus:

“My darling girl, in what there has been between us, I have, I hope, been really solicitous for your happiness. When I wrote you the letter to which you brought the answer,” smiling as he referred to it, “I had my own too much in view; but I had yours too. Whether, under different circumstances, I might ever have renewed the old dream I sometimes dreamed when you were very young, of making you my wife one day, I need not ask myself. I did renew it, and I wrote my letter, and you brought your answer. You are following what I say, my child?”

I was cold, and I trembled violently; but not a word he uttered was lost. As I sat looking fixedly at him, and the sun's rays descended, softly shining through the leaves, upon his bare head, I felt as if the brightness on him must be like the brightness of the Angels.

“Hear me, my love, but do not speak. It is for me to speak now. When it was that I began to doubt whether what I had done would really make you happy, is no matter. Woodcourt came home, and I soon had no doubt at all.”

I clasped him round the neck, and hung my head upon his breast, and wept. “Lie lightly, confidently, here, my child,” said he, pressing me gently to him. “I am your guardian and your father now. Rest confidently here.”

Soothingly, like the gentle rustling of the leaves; and genially, like the ripening weather; and radiantly and beneficently, like the sunshine; he went on.

“Understand me, my dear girl. I had no doubt of your being contented and happy with me, being so dutiful and so devoted; but I saw with whom you would be happier. That I penetrated his secret when Dame Durden was blind to it, is no wonder; for I knew the good that could never change in her, better far than she did. Well! I have long been in Allan Woodcourt's confidence, although he was not, until yesterday, a few hours before you came here, in mine. But I would not have my Esther's bright example lost; I would not have a jot of my dear girl's virtues unobserved and unhonored; I would not have her admitted on sufferance into the line of Morgan ap Kerrig, no, not for the weight in gold of all the mountains in Wales!”

He stopped to kiss me on the forehead, and I sobbed and wept afresh. Tor I felt as if I could not bear the painful delight of his praise.

“Hush, little woman! Don't cry; this is to be a day of joy. I have looked forward to it,” he said, exultingly, “for months on months! A few words more. Dame Trot, and I have said my say. Determined not to throw away one atom of my Esther's worth, I took Mrs. Woodcourt into a separate confidence. ‘Now madam,’ said I, ‘I clearly perceive—and indeed I know, to boot—that your son loves my ward. I am further very sure that my ward loves your son, but will sacrifice her love to a sense of duty and affection, and will sacrifice it so completely, so entirely, so religiously, that you should never suspect it, though you watched her night and day.’ Then I told her all our story—ours—yours and mine.