Oh, then she trembled, and blushed, and hesitated; and faltered out, “What! all in a moment like that? what would your mother think of me?”
Henry ran for his mother, and brought her into the room.
“Mother,” said he, “Grace wants to know what you will think of her, if she should lay aside humbug and marry me to-morrow?”
Mrs. Little replied, “I shall say, here is a dear child, who has seen what misery may spring from delay, and so now she will not coquet with her own happiness, nor trifle with yours.”
“No, no,” said Grace; “only tell me you will forgive my folly, and love me as your child.”
Mrs. Little caught her in her arms, and, in that attitude, Grace gave her hand to Henry, and whispered “Yes.”
Next day, at eleven o'clock, the two couples went to the old church, and walked up the aisle to the altar. Grace looked all around. Raby had effaced every trace of Henry's sacrilege from the building; but not from the heart of her whose life he had saved on that very spot.
She stood at the altar, weeping at the recollections the place revived, but they were tears of joy. The parson of the parish, a white-haired old man, the model of a pastor, married the two couples according to the law of England.
Raby took his wife home, more majorum.
Little whirled his prize off to Scotland, and human felicity has seldom equaled his and his bride's.