"I can still come and sing to you sometimes," says Georgie, with tears in her eyes and voice.
"Ah, yes,—sometimes. That is just the bad part of it; when one has known an 'always,' one does not take kindly to a 'sometimes.' And now here come all my governess troubles back upon my shoulders once more. Don't think me selfish, my dear, to think of that just now in the very morning of your new happiness, but really I can't help it. I have been so content with you, it never occurred to me others might want you too."
"I will ask Clarissa to get you some one else nicer than me," says Georgie, soothingly.
"Will you? Yes, do, my dear: she will do anything for you. And, Georgina,"—from the beginning she has called her thus,—nothing on earth would induce Mrs. Redmond to call her anything more frivolous,—"tell her I should prefer somebody old and ugly, if at all bearable, because then she may stay with me. Dear, dear! how Cissy will miss you! And what will the vicar say?"
And so on. She spends the greater part of the morning rambling on in this style, and then towards the evening despatches Georgie to Gowran to tell Clarissa, too, the great news.
But Clarissa knows all about it before her coming, and meets her in the hall, and kisses her then and there, and tells her she is so glad, and it is the very sweetest thing that could possibly have happened.
"He came down this morning very early and told me all about it," she says, looking as pleased as though it is her own happiness and not another's she is discussing.
"Now, what a pity!" says Georgie: "and I did so want to tell you myself, after the disgraceful way in which you tried to wed me to Mr. Hastings."
"He could not sleep; he confessed that to me. And you had forbidden him to go to the vicarage to see you to-day. What else then could he do but come over and put in a good time here? And he did. We had quite a splendid time," says Miss Peyton, laughing; "I really don't know which of us was the most delighted about it. We both kept on saying pretty things about you all the time,—more than you deserved, I think."
"Now, don't spoil it," says Georgie: "I am certain I deserved it all, and more. Well, if he didn't sleep, I did, and dreamed, and dreamed, and dreamed all sorts of lovely things until the day broke. Oh, Clarissa,"—throwing out her arms with a sudden swift gesture of passionate relief,—"I am free! Am I not lucky, fortunate, to have deliverance sent so soon?"