“I will accompany you as far as the station, if you will allow me,” returned Harry, “and, as soon as your brother arrives, leave you to talk with him in peace; the few words I have to say to him will do equally well after breakfast.”
Alice signified her consent, and the conversation continued for several minutes to turn on indifferent subjects, though the burden of sustaining it fell chiefly upon Alice, Harry’s observations becoming shorter and less coherent at each reply. At length, however, Alice’s stock of small-talk failed her, and Harry, in despair, was about to hazard some such original observation as, that the grass was looking remarkably green, when his companion suddenly addressed him.
“I am afraid that you will think that I am interfering very unnecessarily and impertinently, Mr. Coverdale, but I must trust to your kindness to make allowance for me.”
“She is actually going to confess the cotton-spinner to me, and tell me I’m in the way, I do believe! Cool hands women are, and no mistake!” thought Coverdale; he only said, however, “Pray go on.”
“The fact is,” resumed Alice, with a faltering voice, “my brother Tom informed me (you must not be angry with the poor boy, for he did it out of regard for you) that you—that is that my father and you differed about some political question after dinner yesterday, and that my father was so carried away by the subject as to become injudiciously warm, and, from Tom’s account, personal, and that his observations annoyed you. Now, I am so very sorry this should have occurred, for he had formed such a high opinion of you, and Arthur was so much pleased to see how well you got on with him—a point on which he appeared particularly anxious.” (Coverdale bit his lip, and cut off a thistle’s head viciously with his cane.) “But, if you could be so very good as to overlook anything my father may have said, it would make me—I mean it would make Arthur, and—and—all of us so much happier.”
“My dear Miss Hazlehurst,” began Harry, vehemently, “how very kind of you to trouble yourself about me! I can assure you I am most anxious to say or do anything to regain Mr. Hazlehurst’s good opinion. I know I made him rather an impertinent answer; but really I was so unprepared for such an attack; and then, to make matters worse, that old idiot, Mr. Crane—that is,” he continued, suddenly recollecting to whom he was speaking, and turning crimson as he did so, “I beg your pardon for speaking so disrespectfully of him to you; I really forgot—I am certainly losing my senses!” With a blush as bright, though not quite so deep coloured as that of Coverdale, Alice, turning away her head, replied:
“Mr. Crane’s only claim on my respect is, that he is my father’s friend; if I must own the truth, I do not myself consider him very wise.”
“His only claim did you say!” exclaimed Harry, earnestly. “Oh, Miss Hazlehurst—Alice—pardon me if I ask you to deal openly with me; am I indeed wrong in supposing that you are engaged, or about to become so, to Mr. Crane?”
“Oh yes!” was the hurried reply; “such a fate would render me most miserable.”
Upon this hint Harry spake; the reality and strength of his feelings imparted an earnest dignity to his manner, and an unwonted eloquence to his speech, which would have deeply affected his fair auditor, even had her own heart not pleaded warmly in his favour. As it was, before they arrived in sight of the railroad station, Harry had somehow come to the conclusion, that the communication he should have to make to his friend Arthur would be very much more satisfactory, though perhaps little less embarrassing, than the one he had originally designed. It certainly was a considerable change in the tenour of his report to be forced to explain, that instead of considering himself the most miserable being in the world, he felt convinced he was by far the happiest; for that Alice—resolved not to marry the cotton-spinner—had given her heart, and promised her hand, to him.