"Then of course we shall like her."
"Thank you," says Clarissa. "She is very pretty, and very charming. Perhaps, after all, I am doing a foolish thing for myself. How shall I feel when she has cut me out at the vicarage?"
"Not much fear of that, were she Aphrodite herself. You are much too good a child to be liked lightly or by halves. Well, good-by: you won't forget about the flannel for the Batley twins?"
"I have it ready,—at least, half of it. How could I tell she was going to have twins," says Clarissa, apologetically.
"It certainly was very inconsiderate of her," says the vicar, with a sigh, as he thinks of the poverty that clings to the Batley ménage from year's end to year's end.
"Well, never mind; she shall have it all next week," promises Clarissa, soothingly, marking his regretful tone; and then she bids him farewell, and goes up the road again in the direction of her home.
She is glad to be alone at last. Her mission successfully accomplished, she has now time to let her heart rest contentedly upon her own happiness. All the events of the morning—the smallest word, the lightest intonation, the most passing smile, that claimed Horace as their father—are remembered by her. She dwells fondly on each separate remembrance, and repeats to herself how he looked and spoke at such-and-such moments.
She is happy, quite happy. A sort of wonder, too, mixes with her delight. Only a few short hours ago she had left her home, free, unbetrothed, with only hope to sustain her, and now she is returning to it with her hope a certainty,—bound, heart and soul, to the dearest, truest man on earth, as she believes.
How well he loves her! She had noticed his sudden paling when she had begged for some delay before actually naming her "brydale day." She had hardly believed his love for her was so strong, so earnest: even she (how could she? with tender self-reproach) had misjudged him, had deemed him somewhat cold, indifferent; unknowing of the deep stratum of feeling that lay beneath the outward calm of his demeanor.
Dear, dearest Horace! She will never disbelieve in him again; he is her own now, her very own, and she loves him with all her heart, and he loves just the same, and——Oh, if every woman in the world could only be as happy as she is to-day, what a glorious place it would be!