‘But why so suddenly, so soon?’
‘I must, dear. It is my own choice. I am going to study, to fit myself to take my place in the world, and to find a home for you. Be brave, dear. It is only for a little time.’
‘It is all so sudden.’
‘Yes. I had hoped to stay a little longer, to see more of you, to get used to my happiness before I lost it. But my father suspects, I am sure, if he does not know, and I dared not refuse. It hurts me to go, but what can I do? You know the man he is. And there is only one thing in the world that your father would help him to do—to separate us. I must go away and make a home for you with my own hands; we can expect no help from them. If we are true to each other we shall be happy yet. Our love may end the ridiculous family squabble which has lasted all these generations. But it would be madness to speak yet.’
‘It is that which makes me so unhappy, Dick. Why am I not like other girls? Why can’t you come to the farm and ask my father’s leave to court me, as other girls’ sweethearts do, and as you would like to do? I can’t help feeling that this is wrong, meeting you in secret, and being engaged to you against my father’s will, without his knowledge.’
‘The quarrel is not of our making, Julia. We only suffer by it. I hope we shall bring it to an end, and teach two honest men to live at peace together, as they ought. Why, you’re crying.’
Her tears had been running quietly for some minutes past, but at this she began to sob unrestrainedly. Dick comforted her in the orthodox fashion, and in that sweet employment almost succeeded in forgetting his own sorrow. He drew bright pictures of the future: youth held the palette, and hope laid on the colour. Two or three years of partial separation—so little—and he would have a livelihood in his hand, and could offer her a safe asylum from parental tyranny, and bid his own people either to accept the situation or renounce him, as they might choose. He was quite heroic internally about the whole business. He felt the promise of the coming struggle brace his nerves, and he was more than ready for the test. Young love is selfish at the best, and the heroic likeness of himself doing battle with the world of London half obliterated the pitiful figure of the poor girl, left at home, with nothing to fill her heart but dreams. For him, the delight of battle; for her, long months of weary waiting.
It was no doubt of him, but only the rooted longing for assurance of his love, that made her ask,
‘You won’t forget me, Dick, in London?’
Forget her! His repetition of the word, his little laugh of loving scorn, were answer enough, though he found others, and arguments unanswerable, to clinch them. How could he forget the sweetest, dearest girl that ever drew the breath of life, the prettiest and the bravest? She spoke treason against herself in asking such a question. He could no more forget her in London than Romeo, Juliet in Mantua. She laughed a little at his recalling the old story, from which Mrs. Jenny had drawn so many illustrations of the course of their love since they were children. It recalled the old woman to their minds.