Then she went, giving him her hand as she parted from him; and he, as she left the room looked anxiously at her, watching her countenance and her gait, and listening to the very fall of her footstep. “Ah,” he said to himself, when he was alone, “the young people have the best of it. The sun shines for them; but why should they have all? Poor as he is, he is a happy dog,—a happy dog. But she is twice too good for him. Why did she not take to one of her own country?”
Isa, as she passed through the bank, smiled sweetly on her father, and then smiled sweetly at her lover, nodding to him with a pleasant kindly nod. If he could have heard all that had passed at that interview, how much more he would have known of her than he now knew, and how proud he would have been of her love. No word was spoken as she went out, and then she walked home with even step, as she had walked thither. It can hardly be said that she was disappointed, as she had expected nothing. But people hope who do not expect, and though her step was even and her face calm, yet her heart was sad.
“Mamma,” she said, “there is no hope from Uncle Hatto.”
“So I feared, my dear.”
“But I thought it right to try—for Herbert’s sake.”
“I hope it will not do him an injury in the bank.”
“Oh, mamma, do not put that into my head. If that were added to it all, I should indeed be wretched.”
“No; he is too just for that. Poor young man! Sometimes I almost think it would be better that he should go back to England.”
“Mamma, if he did, I should—break my heart.”
“Isa!”