“Well, we shall see—we shall see. We will talk no more of it,” said Basil.
“With all my heart; I am sure I must reproach myself that I have listened so long.”
“Yet, a word,” said Basil. “I quit England in a fortnight.”
“With a wife?” asked the mother, tremulously.
“With a wife,” exclaimed Basil, and with the words his heart shone in his face.
“Foolish, imprudent, ungrateful boy!” and the mother wept.
“May you have no worse cause for tears, madam, till we meet again,” said Basil proudly. “But pray hear me. We go to make a house in the wilderness. Yet do not think, my mother, my sisters, are forgotten. No: they shall find a home too.”
“In the wilderness?” asked Mrs. Jericho, with contempt.
“In the wilderness,” answered Basil, “and bless the solitude that gives them happy shelter from the falsehood of the dreary finery of life. I say, in the wilderness. Once there, what a new hunger you will feel for nature! Well, all shall be prepared for you.”
“No, Basil,” said the mother mournfully, “we never meet again: mother, sisters, all to you will be as the dead. I suppose you have heard? Agatha marries Sir Arthur, and in a few days.”