"Nothing will happen, Lina. To speak in your own language, there is a Providence above all—is there not?"
"Yes, dear Robert. May He guard you!"
"And if prayers have efficacy, yours will benefit me. You pray for me sometimes?"
"Not sometimes, Robert. You, and Louis, and Hortense are always remembered."
"So I have often imagined. It has occurred to me when, weary and vexed, I have myself gone to bed like a heathen, that another had asked forgiveness for my day, and safety for my night. I don't suppose such vicarial piety will avail much, but the petitions come out of a sincere breast, from innocent lips. They should be acceptable as Abel's offering; and doubtless would be, if the object deserved them."
"Annihilate that doubt. It is groundless."
"When a man has been brought up only to make money, and lives to make it, and for nothing else, and scarcely breathes any other air than that of mills and markets, it seems odd to utter his name in a prayer, or to mix his idea with anything divine; and very strange it seems that a good, pure heart should take him in and harbour him, as if he had any claim to that sort of nest. If I could guide that benignant heart, I believe I should counsel it to exclude one who does not profess to have any higher aim in life than that of patching up his broken fortune, and wiping clean from his bourgeois scutcheon the foul stain of bankruptcy."
The hint, though conveyed thus tenderly and modestly (as Caroline thought), was felt keenly and comprehended clearly.
"Indeed, I only think—or I will only think—of you as my cousin," was the quick answer. "I am beginning to understand things better than I did, Robert, when you first came to England—better than I did a week, a day ago. I know it is your duty to try to get on, and that it won't do for you to be romantic; but in future you must not misunderstand me if I seem friendly. You misunderstood me this morning, did you not?"
"What made you think so?"