“As for you, Susan, it was a masterstroke your venturing into my den.”
“Oh! we turn bold when a body is ill, don't we, aunt?”
“I am not shy for one at the best of times,” remarked the latter.
“Under Heaven you saved my life, at least I think so, Susan, for the medicinal power of soothing influences is immense, I am sure it is apt to be underrated; and then it was you who flew to Malvern and dragged Gulson to me at the crisis of my fate; dear little true-hearted friend, I am sorry to think I can never repay you.”
“You forget, Mr. Eden,” said Susan, almost in a whisper, “I was paid beforehand.”
I wish I could convey the native grace and gentle dignity of gratitude with which the farmer's daughter murmured these four words, like a duchess acknowledging a kindness.
“Eh?” inquired Mr. Eden, “oh! ah! I forgot,” said he naively. “No! that is nonsense, Susan. You have still an immense Cr. against my name; but I know a way—Mrs. Davies, for as simple as I sit here you see in me the ecclesiastic that shall unite this young lady to an honest man, who, report says, loves her very dearly; so I mean to square our little account.”
“That is fair, Susan; what do you say?”
“La, aunt! why I shouldn't look upon it as a marriage at all if any clergyman but Mr. Eden said the words.”
“That is right,” laughed Mr. Eden, “always set some little man above some great thing, and then you will always be—a woman. I must write the plot of my sermon, ladies, but you can talk to me all the same.”