“Only at our wedding, and then he was forced to veil his face from the light.”
“Nor has he ever seen you?”
“Not unless he then saw me.”
“If he were not then charmed enough to repeat the view, you are the most cruelly wasted and unworthily matched—”
“Hush, sister!” broke out Aurelia in eager indignation.
“What! is a lovely young creature, almost equal to what I was before my cruel malady, to waste her bloom on a wretched old melancholic, who will not so much as look at her!”
“Harriet, I cannot hear this—you know not of what you are talking! What is my poor skin-deep beauty—if beauty it be—compared with the stores of goodness and wisdom I find in him?”
“La! child, what heat is this? One would really think you loved him.”
“Of course I do! I love and honour him more than any one I ever met—except my dear father.”
“Come, Aura, you are talking by rote out of the marriage service. You may be open with me, you know, it will go no further; and I do long to know whether you can be truly content at heart,” said Harriet with real affection.