"My girl," he said, "I congratulate you."
"No;—no, no."
"Yes, yes, yes. Is it not better in all ways that it should be so? I do congratulate you. Hold up your head, dear, and bear it well."
"Oh, papa, I shall never bear it well."
"No woman that was ever born has, I believe, borne it better than you will. No woman was ever more fit to grace a high position. My own girl!"
"Yes, papa, your own girl. But I wish,—I wish——"
"All that I have wished has come about." She shuddered as she heard these words, remembering that two deaths had been necessary for this fruition of his desires. But he repeated his words. "All that I have wished has come about. And, Mary, let me tell you this;—you should in no wise be afraid of it, nor should you allow yourself to think of it as though there were anything to be regretted. Which do you believe would make the better peer; your husband or that man who has died?"
"Of course George is ten times the best."
"Otherwise he would be very bad. But no degree of comparison would express the difference. Your husband will add an honour to his rank." She took his hand and kissed it as he said this,—which certainly would not have been said had not that telegram come direct to the deanery. "And, looking to the future, which would probably make the better peer in coming years;—the child born of that man and woman, and bred by them as they would have bred it, or your child,—yours and your husband's? And here, in the country,—from which lord would the tenants receive the stricter justice, and the people the more enduring kindness? Don't you know that he disgraced his order, and that the woman was unfit to bear the name which rightly or wrongly she had assumed? You will be fit."
"No, papa."