"Parson's lady" is a great favourite among the women, to whom Monica devotes all her energies, and not a few among them will one day "rise up and call her blessed," for from her lips and life they have learnt the way into the Kingdom.
Perhaps the daily teaching, and oftentimes tending, of these poor ignorant fisherwomen, was not just the career that Colonel Beauchamp would have chosen for his handsome daughter; and when he gave his consent to her marriage with Leslie Herschel such a future for her was an undreamt-of thing.
But who could resist her pleading tones and soft caress, when, with cheeks like damask roses, she whispered, "Oh, dad, I love him! I think I always have, since the old Sandyshore days. There never could be any one but Leslie for me, and he says just the same!" So her fond father, remembering the sadness of his own short married life, confessed that he was conquered.
"She might have married anybody, with her face and fortune," demurred Mrs. Beauchamp, who was very little altered, outwardly, despite her seventy-six years; "but she always would have her own way."
"Well, I must say I think the child has chosen well," said the colonel. "Leslie is a man in a thousand, and worthy even of our dearest Monica."
"Perhaps, as he was the means of my losing the troublesome part of my granddaughter seven years ago, he has the best right to have her altogether," murmured the old lady, more to herself than to her son, and she fell into a reverie, and lived over again the days that are no more.
THE END.
Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONICA'S CHOICE ***