"Nothing withered or blighted should ever be here," said Captain De Crespigny, in his most sentimental tone. "I should like, in one respect, to resemble flowers, which give nothing but pleasure to all who see them. Are you writing prose, or is this Poet's Corner? If I had the pen of Moore, I could find one subject for my muse more beautiful than any he ever wrote upon, and feelings more deep than he ever expressed! My eyes have ached for the last half hour with trying to see you; and half my eye-strings are cracked with looking from so great a distance."
Marion was now seriously annoyed, and a glow of indignant vexation mantled upon her cheek; but Captain De Crespigny, mistaking her blushes and silence, began to flatter himself that the fortress was not so impregnable as he had feared. A scrap of paper lay on the table, which Marion had carelessly flung aside, after trying a pen, by writing down several times her own Christian name, and Captain De Crespigny having picked it up, laughingly added to it the name of De Crespigny.
"How does this look?" asked he, showing her the signature of "Marion De Crespigny," while a gleam of light shot through his dark eye-lashes. "This is a valuable autograph, which I shall certainly preserve. The signature is not yet a common one, but I hope it may become so, as no other looks half so well to my eye—or to my heart."
"There may be another that I should very much prefer," replied Marion, decidedly, while the bright carnation mounted to her cheek, and she turned her large eyes towards Agnes, who stood at some distance placid and secure, in the certain belief that her own supremacy was established, and that the conversation probably related to herself. "Give me back that paper, Captain De Crespigny, for it contains a mischievous forgery—a name that can never exist upon the earth."
"But it may in fairy-land, and it shall!" replied he, with undaunted pertinacity. "The fates are perpetually weaving people together, and may do something for me! When we are unwillingly separated for a short period, sometime hereafter, I shall every day see this name appended to the most interesting accounts of your garden, your lap-dog, and——"
"And my sister!" added Marion, coldly. "She is always the first object of interest to me. Agnes! do come here and admire the last few stitches I have added to this bible-cover."
"How well it will look at Beaujolie Park!" muttered De Crespigny, almost inaudibly, in that low musical voice which had been irresistible, and with a significance of manner which Marion seemed not to remark. "I hope one day to see it there."
"I intend it as a present to Agnes," replied Marion, dryly.—"That and the prayer-book are both for her dressing-table."
Captain De Crespigny, assuming a look of respectful despondency, examined the volumes during several minutes in silence; but having accidentally opened the service of matrimony, he smilingly pointed it out to Marion, saying, "he hoped this might be considered a good omen," and doubling down the page, he placed the prayer-book opposite to her, saying, "Let me request you will study that till we meet again, as I wish to ask your opinion of it."
Before Marion had time to reply, or to hurry away, as she had been for some time projecting, Agnes advanced with an air of exceedingly forced vivacity, while there was a perceptible flutter of anger in her tone, and Marion felt as much confused as if she had been guilty of a real indiscretion, when she saw that her sister's face had become as white as the wall, her eyes glassy, and her manner unusually excited, though she tried to assume a careless tone, saying: