Lina sprang to him at once; Esther coloured, and began to account for the rest of the family. “I hear,” said Cecil, as low tones came through the closed doors of the back drawing-room, “they work as hard here as my sister does!”
“I think my aunt has almost done,” said Essie, with a shy doubt whether she ought to stay. “Come, Lina, I must get you ready for tea.”
“No, no,” said Cecil, “don’t go! You need not be as much afraid of me as that first time I walked in, and thought I had got into a strange house.”
Essie laughed a little, and said, “A month ago! Sometimes it seems a very long time, and sometimes a very short one.”
“I hope it seems a very long time that you have known me.”
“Well, Johnny and all the rest had known you ever so long,” answered she, with a confusion of manner that expressed a good deal more than the words. “I really must go—”
“Not till you have told me more than that,” cried Cecil, seizing his opportunity with a sudden rush of audacity. “If you know me, can you—can you like me? Can’t you? Oh, Essie, stay! Could you ever love me, you peerless, sweetest, loveliest—”
By this time Mrs. Brownlow, who had heard Cecil’s boots on the stairs, and particularly wished to stave matters off till after the Friar’s mission, had made a hasty conclusion of her lesson, and letting her girls depart, opened the door. She saw at once that she was too late; but there was no retreat, for Esther flew past her in shy terror, and Cecil advanced with the earnest, innocent entreaty, “Oh, Mrs. Brownlow, make her hear me! I must have it out, or I can’t bear it.”
“Oh,” said she, “it has come to this, has it?” speaking half-quaintly, half-sadly, and holding Lina kindly back.
“I could not help it!” he went on. “She did look so lovely, and she is so dear! Do get her down, that I may see her again. I shall not have a happy moment till she answers me.”