Page:The Small House at Allington Vol 1.djvu/103

Rh have done. The bold assurance of her love when they two were alone together he did like. What man does not like such assurances on such occasions? But perhaps he would have been better pleased had Lily shown more reticence,—been more secret, as it were, as to her feelings, when others were around them. It was not that he accused her in his thoughts of any want of delicacy. He read her character too well;—was, if not quite aright in his reading of it, at least too nearly so to admit of his making against her any such accusation as that. It was the calf-like feeling that was disagreeable to him. He did not like to be presented, even to the world of Allington, as a victim caught for the sacrifice, and bound with ribbon for the altar. And then there lurked behind it all a feeling that it might be safer that the thing should not be so openly manifested before all the world. Of course, everybody knew that he was engaged to Lily Dale; nor had he, as he said to himself, perhaps too frequently, the slightest idea of breaking from that engagement. But then the marriage might possibly be delayed. He had not discussed that matter yet with Lily, having, indeed, at the first moment of his gratified love, created some little difficulty for himself by pressing for an early day. "I will refuse you nothing," she had said to him; "but do not make it too soon." He saw, therefore, before him some little embarrassment, and was inclined to wish that Lily would abstain from that manner which seemed to declare to all the world that she was about to be married immediately. "I must speak to her to-morrow," he said to himself, as he accepted her salute with a mock gravity equal to her own.

Poor Lily! How little she understood as yet what was passing through his mind. Had she known his wish she would have wrapped up her love carefully in a napkin, so that no one should have seen it,—no one but he, when he might choose to have the treasure uncovered for his sight. And it was all for his sake that she had been thus open in her ways. She had seen girls who were half ashamed of their love; but she would never be ashamed of hers or of him. She had given herself to him; and now all the world might know it, if all the world cared for such knowledge. Why should she be ashamed of that which, to her thinking, was so great an honour to her? She had heard of girls who would not speak of their love, arguing to themselves cannily that there may be many a slip between the cup and the lip. There could be no need of any such caution with her. There could surely be no such slip! Should there be