"You shall be Fanny if you will let me tell you. Oh! I do so wish that you would understand it all, and make me tell you nothing further. But you must know,—you must know that it cannot be as your brother has wished. If it were only less known,—if he would consent and you would consent,—then I think that I could be happy. What is it after all,—the few years that we may have to live here? Shall we not meet again, and shall we not love each other then?"
"I hope so."
"If you can really hope it, then why should we not be happy? But how could I hope it if, with my eyes open, I were to bring a great misfortune upon him? If I did him an evil here, could I hope that he would love me in Heaven, when he would know all the secrets of my heart? But if he shall say to himself that I denied myself,—for his sake; that I refused to be taken into his arms because it would be bad for him, then, though there may be some one dearer, then shall not I also be dear to him?" The other girl could only cling to her and embrace her. "When he shall have strong boys round his hearth,—the hearth he spoke of as though it were almost mine,—and little girls with pink cheeks and bonny brows, and shall know, as he will then, what I might have done for him, will he not pray for me, and tell me in his prayers that when we shall meet hereafter I shall still be dear to him? And when she knows it all, she who shall lie on his breast, shall I not be dear also to her?"
"Oh, my sister!"
"He will tell her. I think he will tell her,—because of his truth, his honour, and his manliness."
Lady Frances, before she left the house, had been made to understand that her brother could not have his way in the matter which was so near his heart, and that the Quaker's daughter would certainly have hers.
CHAPTER VI.
"BUT HE IS;—HE IS."
George Roden had come to a decision as to his title, and had told every one concerned that he meant to be as he always had been,—George Roden, a clerk in the Post Office. When spoken to, on this side and the other, as to the propriety,—or rather impropriety,—of his decision, he had smiled for the most part, and had said but little, but had been very confident in himself. To none of the arguments used against him would he yield in the least. As to his mother's name, he said, no one had doubted, and no one would doubt it for a moment. His mother's name had been settled by herself, and she had borne it for a quarter of a century. She had not herself thought of changing it. For her to blaze out into the world as a Duchess,—it would be contrary to her feelings, to her taste, and to her comfort! She would have no means of maintaining the title,—and would be reduced to the necessity of still living in Paradise Row, with the simple addition of an absurd nickname. As to that, no question had been raised. It was only for him that she required the new appellation.