"Angered—with Bessie?" repeated the young man; "how can you think it? She knows that I am not."
He took her hand and pressed it to his lips with earnest affection; Lady Phipps gently unlocked the young girl's arm from her neck, placed both hands in Norman's, and left the startled pair standing side by side, in front of the old man, who stood in the midst of the scene lost in astonishment.
A gleam of joy came back to Elizabeth's face, and she stood half terrified, half abashed, like a fawn ready to flee at the slightest sound. She cast one shy glance at her father from under the silken lashes that instantly drooped to her hot cheeks, and then drew away from her lover, ashamed of her own exquisite happiness.
"Let no new trouble come between your hearts," said Sir William, solemnly. Then turning to Samuel Parris, he added with deep feeling—
"My dear old friend, these two persons love each other deeply, truly, I think; as you and I have loved before this. Need I ask you to bless an attachment which has every promise of happiness?"
"But she is a child. My Elizabeth is a babe as yet. It was but yesterday that she sat on my knee learning her alphabet. Why talk of love between any one and a young creature like that? It is sacrilege; cruel, cruel. I have not deserved this at your hands, William Phipps!"
"Nay," answered the governor, deeply moved, but firm in his own idea; "her mother was but one little year older than Elizabeth when she became your wife."
"What! what!" cried the old man, looking upon his child with a sort of terror. "Has the babe advanced so close upon her womanhood? She loves another, and the old man will be left alone. God help us all, for this is a heavy blow."
"Nay, my friend," urged the governor. "The young man is well worthy of any maiden's love. Be content that I regard him almost as my own son. It is but gaining another child, Samuel Parris; a son who will support the declining years of your life with his strong arm."
Parris cast a long, half-reluctant look at the young man, who met his scrutiny with a frank, honest return, that half drove the look of dismay from that anxious old face.