"When Miss Anne Prettyman told me that I should be ready with my answer, and when I saw that Miss Prettyman herself used to let him come to the house and seemed to wish that I should see him when he came, and when he once was—so very gentle and kind, and when he said that he wanted me to love Edith,— Oh, mamma!"
"Yes, darling, I know. Of course you loved him."
"Yes, mamma. And I do love him. How could one not love him?"
"I love him,—for loving you."
"But, mamma, one is bound not to do a harm to any one that one loves. So when he came to Allington I told him that I could not be his wife."
"Did you, my dear?"
"Yes; I did. Was I not right? Ought I to go to him to bring a disgrace upon all the family, just because he is so good that he asks me? Shall I injure him because he wants to do me a service?"
"If he loves you, Grace, the service he will require will be your love in return."
"That is all very well, mamma,—in books; but I do not believe it in reality. Being in love is very nice, and in poetry they make it out to be everything. But I do not think I should make Major Grantly happy if when I became his wife his own father and mother would not see him. I know I should be so wretched, myself, that I could not live."
"But would it be so?"