Leonora spied some harebells in the crevices of the slaty rocks of a steep declivity, and pointed them out as the first of the season.
“I must get them for you,” cried Berwick.
“No, no! It is a dangerous place,” said Leonora.
“They shall be your harebells,” said Berwick, swinging himself, by the aid of a birch-tree that grew almost horizontally out of the cleft of a rock, over the precipice, and snatching the flowers. Leonora treasured them for years, pressed between the leaves of Shelley’s Poems.
Thus began a courtship which, three weeks afterwards, was followed by an offer of marriage. Early in the acquaintance, foreseeing the drift of Berwick’s eager attentions, Leonora had frankly communicated by letter her suspicions in regard to her own birth.
In his reply Berwick had written: “I almost wish it may be as you imagine, in order that I may the better prove to you the strength of my attachment; for I do not underrate the desirableness of an honorable genealogy. No one can prize more than I an unspotted lineage. But I would not marry the woman who I did not think could in herself compensate me for the absence of all advantages of family position and wealth; and whose society could not more than m—flittedake up for the loss of all social attractions that could be offered outside of the home her presence would sanctify. You are the one my heart points to as able to do all this; and so, Leonora, whether it be the bar sinister or the ducal coronet that ought to be in your coat of arms, it matters not to me. No herald’s pen can make you less charming in my eyes. Under any cloud that could be thrown over your origin, to me you would always be, as Portia was to Brutus, a fair and honorable wife;—
‘As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit this sad heart.’
And yet not sad, if you were mine! So do not think that any future development in regard to the antecedents of yourself or of your parents can detract from an affection based on those qualities which are of the soul and heart, and the worth of which no mortal disaster can impair.”
To all which the imprudent young lady returned this answer: “Do not think to outdo me in generosity. You judge me independently of all social considerations and advantages; I will do the same by you; for I know as little of you as you do of me.”