“Have you no parting word for me, Miss De Lancie?” inquired the young man, approaching her, and speaking in a low tone, and with a beseeching look.
Marguerite waved her hand. “A good voyage, my lord,” she said.
He caught that hand and pressed it to his lips and heart, and after a long, deep gaze into her eyes, he recollected himself, snatched his hat, bowed to the party, and left the room.
Colonel Compton, in the true spirit of kindness, arose and followed with the purpose of attending him to his ship.
“There’s a coronet slipped through your fingers! Oh, Marguerite! Marguerite! if I had been in your place I should have secured that match! For, once married, they couldn’t unmarry us, or bar the succession, either, and so, in spite of all the reverend tutors and most noble papas in existence, I should, in time, have worn the coronet of a marchioness,” said Miss Compton.
“And you would have done a very unprincipled thing, Cornelia,” replied her mother, very gravely.
The blood rushed to Miss De Lancie’s brow and crimsoned her face, as she arose in haste and withdrew to her own chamber.
“But, mamma, what do you suppose to have been the cause of Marguerite’s rejection of Lord William’s addresses?”
“I think that she had two reasons, either of which would have been all sufficient to govern her in declining the alliance. The first was, that Marguerite could never yield her affections to a man who has no other personal claims upon her esteem than the possession of a good heart and a fair share of intelligence; the second was, that Miss De Lancie had too high a sense of honor to bestow her hand on a young gentleman whose addresses were unsanctioned by his family.”
The next day Colonel Compton and his party set out for Philadelphia, where, upon his arrival, he received from Mr. Adams an official appointment that required his residence in the city of Richmond. And thither, in the course of the month, he proceeded with his wife and daughter.