“Dreadful!” he said, smiling, and looking round. “But it will soon be over. To-morrow you will be out of all this hullabaloo.”
Esmeralda laughed.
“Lady Wyndover says that we shall feel as if we were out of the world at Deepdale.” Deepdale was Lady Wyndover’s little place in Surrey.
“It can not be too quiet,” he said. “More presents?” He glanced at a table littered with costly offerings.
“Yes,” she said. “They come every hour, and from people I don’t ever seem to have heard of. We shall want a room to hold them all. Oh! but I want to show you something. Wait a moment.”
She ran from the room, and returned presently with a small wooden box, and took from it a little heart made of Australian gold.
“Look!” she said, and her eyes were moist. “Varley Howard—my guardian, you know—sent it. It came to-day; all the boys sent it. It is made from gold found in the camp. See, there are three stars engraved on it, with ‘Love to Esmeralda, from all the Camp.’” Her eyes filled with tears, and she dashed them away with the back of her hand. “I must wear that to-morrow,” she said. “I must wear it always.”
Her emotion seemed touching and charming to him. Notwithstanding all the adulation she had received, she was still a simple, tender-hearted girl, this bride-elect of his. He could not help thinking that Ada Lancing, however she might have valued the gift, would never have dreamed of wearing it on her wedding-day.
“Yes, wear it always, Esmeralda,” he said. “You must prize it above everything else you have received.”