Rose folded both hands over her bosom with a look of unspeakable content. Both look and gesture were involuntary.
“Aye, hoard it away, treasure it deep in your heart, I suppose you mean. Silly girl! Well, what is to be the end of it all? What practical object do you propose to yourself? When ever do you expect to be married?”
“Whenever Mark asks me, mamma!”
“It is just madness!” exclaimed the lady, impatiently; “he has not a dollar!”
“Yes, he has! All that I have, mamma!”
“All that you have! Do you imagine for an instant that your guardian will give up one cent of your property during your minority? No; he will even stop your allowance if you become the wife of Mark Sutherland!”
“Why should he do that? It would be very unjust!” said Rosalie, raising her eyebrows with surprise. “It would be unnatural! monstrous! My guardian, Mark’s own uncle! Oh! surely, having discarded him, he will not pursue him with persecutions.”
“Will he not?”
“No, I will never believe it!”
“He will fill up the measure of his animosity—believe that! Clement Sutherland did not appear at the breakfast table this morning. Can you not surmise the cause? He has many bad reasons for hating his nephew. He hates him for his political opinions, for his principles, and, more than all, for having had the power to give up the beautiful India. Clement Sutherland worships his beautiful daughter; and he hates Mark for not having laid upon her shrine the most precious jewel of his soul—his integrity. And now, with the opposition of your guardian, who is invested with such power over your fortune, what have you to expect in giving yourself to Mark Sutherland?”