Page:Tales of my landlord (Volume 4).djvu/200

 one. Let courtions and sycophants flatter power and desert misfortune, I will neither do the one nor the other."

"And if you are determined to get what my feeble judgment must still term rashly. why give yourself the pain of this untimely meeting?"

"Were it not enough to answer," said Lord Evandade, "that ere rushing on battle, I wished to bid adieu to my betrothed bride?—surely it is judging coldly of my feelings, and shewing too plainly the indifference of your own, to question my mative for a request so natural."

"But why in this place, my Lord?" said Edith—why with such popular circumstances of mystery?"

"Because," he replied, putting a letter into her hand, "I have yet another request, which I dare hardly proffer, even when prefaced by these credentials."

In haste and terror Edith glanced over the letter, which was from her grandmother.