“Answer me, Drusa,” he said.
“It would make me happy to do anything you should ask me to do; for I love to feel that I belong to you, to do your bidding; and that you have a right to dispose of me as you please,” she murmured, in a very low and timid tone, hesitating and blushing to utter her own pure thoughts.
“This is devotion, this is submission, but it may not be the love that makes happiness. Drusilla, apart from all this—your pleasure in pleasing me. Will it make you in yourself happy to be my wife and spend your whole life by my side?” he earnestly inquired.
“As happy as an angel in Heaven,” she aspirated, in a low and fervent tone.
He caught her closer to his bosom and pressed her there; he pressed kisses on her lips, her cheeks, her brow; he called her by every endearing name——
There came a gentle, discreet knock at the door.
“Well! Who’s there? Come in!” said Mr. Alexander impatiently, as he gently put Drusilla off his knee.
The door opened and Dorset appeared.
“What now? I really believe you are wantonly trying my temper!” exclaimed Alexander.
“If you please, sir, I thought maybe you had retired, and I came to rake out the fire and turn off the gas, as usual, before going to bed myself.”