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Rh refused him, and I must express my admiration for your good—"

"Wait half a moment, Lady Lufton. Your son did make me an offer. He made it to me in person, up at the Parsonage, and I then refused him—foolishly, as I now believe, for I dearly love him. But I did so from a mixture of feelings which I need not, perhaps, explain; that most prominent, no doubt, was a fear of your displeasure. And then he came again, not to me, but to my brother, and urged his suit to him. Nothing can have been kinder to me, more noble, more loving, more generous, than his conduct. At first I thought, when he was speaking to myself, that he was led on thoughtlessly to say all that he did say. I did not trust his love, though I saw that he did trust it himself. But I could not but trust it when he came again—to my brother, and made his proposal to him. I don't know whether you will understand me, Lady Lufton; but a girl placed as I am feels ten times more assurance in such a tender of affection as that, than in one made to herself, at the spur of the moment, perhaps. And then you must remember that I—I myself—I loved him from the first. I was foolish enough to think that I could know him and not love him."

"I saw all that going on," said Lady Lufton, with a certain assumption of wisdom about her, "and took steps which I hoped would have put a stop to it in time."

"Every body saw it. It was a matter of course," said Lucy, destroying her ladyship's wisdom at a blow. "Well, I did learn to love him, not meaning to do so; and I do love him with all my heart. It is no use my striving to think that I do not; and I could stand with him at the altar to-morrow and give him my hand, feeling that I was doing my duty by him, as a woman should do. And now he has told you of his love, and I believe in that as I do in my own—" And then for a moment she paused.

"But, my dear Miss Robarts—" began Lady Lufton.

Lucy, however, had now worked herself up into a condition of power, and would not allow her ladyship to interrupt her in her speech.

"I beg your pardon, Lady Lufton; I shall have done directly, and then I will hear you. And so my brother came to me, not urging this suit, expressing no wish for such a marriage, but allowing me to judge for myself, and