‘How does the purse hold out?’
‘I have been reckoning that we could stay on three weeks more before going to Brogden; and, if you like it, I should wish to spend our wedding-day here,’ said Violet, in the shy diffident way in which she was wont to proffer any request for her own gratification.
‘I had another scheme for our wedding-day. What do you say to spending it at Wrangerton?’
She looked up in his face as if to see if he really meant it, then the glad flush darted into her cheeks, and with a cry of joy like a child, she almost sobbed out, ‘Oh, Arthur, Arthur! thank you.’
He looked at her, amused, and enjoying her ecstasy. ‘So you approve, Mrs. Martindale?’
‘O, to go to mamma! to show mamma the children! Annette! home!—Johnnie to see Helvellyn!—my sisters!—Olivia’s baby!’ cried Violet, in incoherent exclamations, almost choked with joy.
‘My poor Violet,’ said Arthur, surprised and almost remorseful; ‘I did not know you wished it so very much.’
‘I believe I had left off thinking about it,’ said Violet; ‘but I am so very much obliged to you, dear Arthur—how very kind it is.’
It never occurred to her, as it did to him, that the kindness might have come sooner. ‘I only hope you like it,’ she added, after a pause.
‘Don’t I like what makes you look as you do now?’ said he, smiling. ‘I shall enjoy looking up our old quarters. Besides,’ he added, more gravely, ‘it is your turn now; and liking apart, I know I have not used Mrs. Moss well, in keeping you so long from her. You must let her know it was not your fault.’