“Good heavens!” throwing up her delicate hands; “what possessed him to stay?”
Aurea laughed and coloured, and then said—
“Well, Aunt Maggie—I—I suppose I had something to say to it.”
“He must be extraordinarily devoted! Why, he must adore you, my dear! I’m sure your uncle would never have cleaned windows and washed cars for me! Ha! ha! well, Aurea, I confess I like your—er—chauffeur.”
“But he’s not a chauffeur now, and will soon have a motor of his own. He is his uncle’s agent; we are to live at Wynyard, and have a splendid allowance. Owen means to do a lot for the tenants, and I’m to take over the village girls—oh, we have had such a talk!”
“A talk! Yes, no doubt. What will your father and Susan say?”
“They will be enchanted; they are both fond of Owen; indeed, for one whole day, the village was thrilled with the idea that Susan and Owen had eloped!” and she related the story with so much of her old spirit, that her aunt lay back in her chair and laughed till she wept.
“I believe I shall like young Wynyard,” she repeated, as she dried her eyes, “and you know your uncle and I look on you, Aurea, as our own child, so the General will have a word in the settlements; and when you marry, you shall have my emerald necklace. Good-night, dearest. I must go off and talk this over with my old man. I declare I feel so excited, that I’m sure I shall not sleep a wink.”
And what of Aurea, to whom Destiny had brought a rapturous fate within the last two hours? She pulled up the blind, opened wide the window, and, leaning her arms on the sill, gazed upon the scene—the gently heaving ocean, the vast, limitless firmament, the silver moonlight—and wondered, was any girl in all the wide world as happy as herself?
THE END