"She is a dear, kind, good girl," he said to himself as he walked on, "and still so like what she was as a child. Happy state!--happy character!--which changes not with the hard world's experience--which has no need to change. Mistress of herself, her actions, and her fortune--armed in honesty of purpose and purity of heart--why should she bend the finest feelings and the noblest principles to the cold rules of the world?"
The lodge-gate was soon reached; the grounds were soon passed through; and when he stood under the portico and stretched out his hand to the bell, the village clock, clear and musical, struck nine.
"I am to the moment," he thought, "and I am glad of it. I would not repay such regard with the slightest appearance of neglect."
The servant who opened the door showed no wonder at the sight of a young and very handsome stranger asking to see Lady Anne at that hour of the night. All her servants had given up wondering at Lady Arnie long ago. Giving his name as Colonel Middleton, Henry was at once led to the drawing-room where she was sitting; and as soon as he had entered, the door was closed. She at once rose from the book she had been reading, and advanced to meet him with both her hands stretched out. He took them affectionately, and to his surprise she raised her face to his and kissed his check.
"There, Henry!" she said--"now that I have astonished you enough, I will try and be reasonable; and, first, that you may not think me anything but very mad, I will tell you something--but first sit down by me here. Well, I was going to say I have made up my mind that you are to marry Maria Monkton--I am quite sure of it. There were tears upon her cheek when I came in, and love enough in your eyes to show me the whole. Then, again, as I have told Charles Marston, if he asks me some day when I am in a good humour, I may marry him--it is all arranged. And now you think me odder, stranger, wilder than ever; and I believe it is so, for the very great joy of seeing you again, when every one but myself believed you dead, has carried me quite away."
"And did you not, then, believe me dead, Lady Anne?" asked Henry.
"Do not call me that odious name!" she answered, and then added, "Only half. I doubted, and so did my poor father till his last hour. Little reason had we to doubt, it is true; but still, you know, Henry, doubt is a very clinging plant. Look here!" she continued, raising a light from the table, and leading the way through chairs and sofas, and various sorts of furniture, to the other side of the large room: "look here! Do you know whose picture this is?"
"Mine," answered Henry, with a smile; "what could tempt you to buy it?"
"I did not buy it," she said: "it was given to me, and I have always hoped--faintly, fearfully, but still hoped to see that face again--the face of the brother of my girlhood. I one time thought of giving it to Maria, for I knew it would be a comfort and a consolation to her, but I had not the heart; and now, of course, you will have another painted for her, which will please her better, as it will be more like the present. That will do well for me: it is the Henry, of my remembrance."
It must be owned that Henry Hayley was puzzled. He had seen and observed many women acting in many circumstances; but he had never yet seen sisterly affection so warmly, so plainly, displayed towards any one not actually akin to her who felt it. Yet, let there be no mistake: he did not misunderstand Lady Anne Mellent for an instant. He did not suppose that she was moved towards him by any feelings but those which she acknowledged; but he thought, and thought with a sigh, that those feelings might be misunderstood by others; for the world rarely, if ever, as he well knew, understands perfect sincerity of character.