"Oh yes," she murmured again; "I think that he loves me."
I said no more for a while. Joyce's attitude puzzled me. That she should speak so diffidently of the adoration of a man who had addressed to her the passionate words which I had overheard, passed my comprehension.
I fell to wondering what was her feeling towards him. More than ever I felt that she had passed beyond me into a world of which I knew only in dreams. I had risen now, and stood over the fire.
"I always dreamed of something like that for you, Joyce," said I. "I always felt that you weren't a bit suited to marry a country bumpkin, but I never pictured to myself anything so good as this for you. Mother had grand ideas for you, I know. Oh yes; and you know she had, now," added I, in answer to a deprecatory "Oh, don't!" from my sister. "But I should have hated what she wanted; and I don't believe you would ever have consented. But Captain Forrester is not a landed proprietor; he cares for the rights of the people as father does. He is a fine fellow; and then he is young, and has never loved any one else," added I, dropping my voice.
I suppose I said this in allusion to the squire's first wife.
She did not say anything, and I kneeled down beside her. "Dear Joyce," I whispered—and I do believe my voice trembled—"I do want you to be happy. And though I shall feel dreadfully lonely when you have gone away and left me, I sha'n't be sorry, because I shall be so glad you have got what I wanted you to have."
She squeezed my hand very tight.
"Oh, but I sha'n't be married, dear, not for ever so long yet," said she. "Why, you forget, we don't know what father and mother will say."
"Why, father and mother can only want what is best for you," answered I. And I believed it. Nevertheless, what father and mother, or at all events what mother thought best, was not what I thought best.
When Captain Forrester came the next morning, I knew before he passed into father's business-room that he was not going to receive a very satisfactory answer. He was expected; his answer was prepared, and I was to blame that it was.