"Oh, my son!" she began; but Griselda left her chair, and, coming to her side, she said:
"Madam, I pray you to receive me as your daughter. I will try to be a loving and true wife. Madam, I am alone in the world, and as I have been so happy as to win the love of your son, you must needs think kindly of me. I will strive to be worthy of him."
This avowal was so entirely unexpected that Mrs. Travers could not at first speak. This simple confession of love, this sad reference to her lonely condition, this promise to be a true and loyal wife—how unlike the coquettish and half-reluctant, half-triumphant manner which Mrs. Travers thought a Bath belle would assume under these circumstances!
"My dear," she said, after a pause, during which Leslie had thrown his arm protectingly round Griselda—"my dear, may I do my duty to you as my only son's wife? I pray that you may be kept safe in this evil world, and that we may mutually encourage each other to tread the narrow way leading to everlasting happiness."
Griselda bent, and said simply:
"Kiss me, dear madam, in token of your approval;" and Mrs. Travers rose, and very solemnly putting her arm round Griselda, and holding the hand which was locked in her son's, pressed a kiss on the fair forehead of her future daughter-in-law, and uttered a prayer for God's blessing on her. Then Griselda said, "I must return now to Lady Betty. Will you come, sir?"
"Give me my name," he said. "Let me hear you give me my name."
"There is time enough for that," she said, rallying with an arch smile. "We will come to that by-and-by."
And soon they were retracing their steps to the North Parade, joy in their hearts, and that sweet sense of mutual love and confidence, which in all times, whenever it is given, comes near to the bliss of the first love-story rehearsed in Paradise. Alas! that too often it should pass like a dream, and that the trail of the serpent should be ready to mar the beauty of the flowers of an Eden like Leslie Travers's, and Griselda Mainwaring's.