But all Marian's reserve was now gone, and the long-restrained feelings of her heart flowed forth all together. "Nay, nay, Edward," she said, again seating herself on the sofa, without, however, withdrawing the small soft hand he held in his; "nay, nay, Edward, have I not enough for us both? enough to give us every comfort? Nay, every luxury that we ought to have we shall still possess; and why need we wish for more? Do you think that the coach-and-six, and the golden-coated coachman, and the three lackeys on the footboard ever entered into my calculations of happiness?"
"No; but, dearest Marian," he replied, "it is only painful to me to think that I bring nothing to unite to your property. Your large fortune renders it only the more necessary that I should have one too--"
"Hush, hush, hush!" cried Marian, eagerly: but still he went on: "I have to owe you every thing, Marian; love, and happiness, and rank, and station, and fortune too."
"And will you, Edward, you talk so proudly to Marian de Vaux?" she exclaimed. "Will you be too haughty to enjoy all the blessings that we possess, because it is Marian that gives them? Is not that which is mine yours? Has it not been so since we were children? Do not distress me, Edward, by one thought of such a kind. Indeed, I shall think you do not love me--that you are going to refuse my offered hand."
"Oh, Marian, Marian!" he cried, kissing it a thousand times, while something very bright, and not unlike a tear, glittered in his eye. "I would not lose it for a thousand worlds! Distress you! dearest girl! I grieve to have distressed you for a moment; but I felt myself bound to tell you all."
"Oh, that does not distress me at all," replied Marian; "the only thing that could distress me would be to see you grieve, or to think that you should make a difference, even in thought, between what is yours and what is mine. I declare, Edward, I never knew what it was to feel glad of a large fortune before; but now I am thankful, not only for what my mother left me, but for every shilling that my good old granduncle and guardian has scraped together for me, by his economy thereof. Three thousand a year, Edward--consider, we shall be as rich as princes; and if it had not been for that, this misfortune might have obliged us to wait on for many a year, till you had made a fortune in India, and very likely have lost your health, which no fortune could have compensated."
Marian de Vaux spoke in a manner totally different from that which her cousin had seen her display for many a year. Her beautiful eyes were full of light and feeling; a smile, half-tender, half-playful, hovered over her lip, and her voice was full of eager kindness and thrilling affection. He had remembered her thus as a girl; but, as she had grown up towards womanhood, either the feelings which had animated her bosom with such a warm and enthusiastic glow had passed away, or the expression of them had been gradually suppressed. Now, again, she was all that he remembered her, and to see her so, plunged him into a sweet vision of the past--connected, though by some fine golden threads, with the present. He had seated himself on the sofa beside her, and, still holding her right hand in his, he had glided his left arm round her waist, and then, with his eyes fixed on a distant spot of the floor, he remained in silence for two or three moments after she had done speaking. Unless man were a cold unfeeling piece of ticking mechanism, like a watch, our measures of time would always be by our sensations: and as Marian had at that moment given way to all the eagerness of her heart, the two moments that Edward de Vaux remained in thought seemed to her an age. "What is the matter, Edward?" she said. "Are you still unhappy?"
"No, my beloved," he answered, looking up in her face with a glance that fully confirmed his words,--"no, my beloved; I am most happy! so happy, indeed, that, were I placed as I was before, I would almost again undergo the pain which this discovery first caused me, to enjoy the delight which my Marian's conduct has bestowed."
"And did you doubt what that conduct would be, Edward?" she demanded, half-reproachfully. Edward de Vaux coloured, and might have hesitated; for conscience, that bitter smiter, who always finds his time to apply the lash, now struck him severely for all those images which an irritable fancy had suggested concerning Marian's conduct. But she saved him the pain of a reply, which must either have been mortifying or insincere. "And did you doubt what my conduct would be?" she asked; and in the next moment she added, "But never mind, dear Edward; you see what it is, and do never doubt it again."
"I will never doubt, as long as I live, my own beloved girl," he answered, ardently; "I will never doubt, as long as I live, that it will on every occasion be all that is good, and noble, and generous: but it was not that alone, my Marian, that made me so happy--so very, very happy."