"Did you ever see me weep, Madge?"
"I have noticed more than you think I have,—and believe me, Gabriella, Ernest will have to answer for every tear he draws from those angel eyes of yours."
"Margaret, you know not what you say. Ernest loves me ten thousand times better than I deserve. He lavishes on me a wealth of love that humbles me with a consciousness of my own demerits. His only fault is loving me too well. Never never breathe before Mrs. Linwood or Edith,—before a human being, the sentiment you uttered now. Never repeat the idle gossip you may have heard. If you do speak of us, say that I have known woman's happiest, most blissful lot. And that I would rather be the wife of Ernest one year, than live a life of endless duration with any other."
"It must be a pleasant thing to be loved," said Margaret, and her black eyes flashed through the red shade of tears.
"And to love," I repeated. "It is more blessed to give, than to receive."
A sympathetic chord was touched,—there was music in it. Who ever saw a person weep genuine tears, without feeling the throbbings of humanity,—the drawings of the chain that binds together all the sons and daughters of Adam? If there are such beings, I pity them.
Let them keep as far from me as the two ends of the rainbow are from each other. The breath of the Deity has frozen within them.
CHAPTER XL.
The morning of Margaret's departure, when Mr. Regulus was standing with gloves and hat in hand waiting her readiness, it happened that I was alone in the parlor with him a few moments.