He saw that by this time Alice's emotion had a little subsided; she had even ventured, at the last words, to look up in his face; and he now went on, coming nearer to the matter of his thoughts. "Alice," he said, "dear Alice, I would beseech you not to agitate yourself, and yet I must speak to you on subjects which will create much emotion."
Did Alice think, even for a moment, that he was too confident--that he was too sure of possessing such great influence over her mind? She did not; but even if such an idea had presented itself for a moment, it would have vanished immediately, for he went on: "I know that I must greatly agitate and move you; for if my brightest and dearest hopes are true, that heart is too deep and too intense in all its feelings not to be agitated by the words you must hear, and the words you must speak; and if those hopes are not true, if, like so many other of life's illusions, they have given me a moment of brightness but to plunge me in the deeper night, that heart is too gentle and too kind to tell me that the whole of the rest of my life is misery, without feeling wrung and pained. Alice, I have sought you, not to tell you that I love you; for that you must have known long----"
"Oh no!" she cried, suddenly looking up through a flood of bright and happy tears, "Oh no! I might think so, but I could not be sure of it!"
Langford smiled, and pressed her hand to his lips. "Do not think me presumptuous," he answered; "do not think me presumptuous when I say, that those words and that look have already given a reply, and made me most happy. Oh no! I am not presumptuous, for I know Alice Herbert too well not to feel that such words, and such a look, may well spare my agitating her further, on one subject at least. Yet tell me, Alice, am I as happy as I dream myself to be?"
For a moment she made him no answer, and he added, "Oh speak!"
"What can I say, Langford?" she murmured, in a low voice; "you, who know the human heart so well, must have read mine perhaps too deeply."
He gave up a few moments to thanks and to expressions of his joy: but after that, a graver shade came upon his countenance, and he said, "There is much, much, my beloved, to be spoken of between us. With that bright confidence which you shall never find misplaced, you have yielded your heart and your happiness to one of whose rank and station, fortune and family, you know nothing."
"I know himself," replied Alice, gazing up in her lover's face, "and I know that he is everything that is noble and good."
"May I ever justify such feelings, Alice," replied Langford; "but still, my beloved, it is necessary that you should know something of me, especially as I may have to draw still more deeply upon your confidence, to call for trust and reliance such as are seldom justified. During the last three or four days, Alice, my mind has been in a state of hesitation and doubt as to what course I should pursue. I felt that under some points of view I ought, in propriety, to communicate my feelings to your father, in the very first place; and yet, Alice, as I was sure that you knew that I loved you, as I had determined to bind you by no promise till your father's full consent was obtained, and as I had to confide in you, to consult with you, to ask your advice even upon a matter that must affect the whole course of my life, my fortune, my station, and everything--a matter which, for many reasons, I do not wish to communicate to your father at present, I have judged it best, and determined, to open my whole heart to you at once."
Alice listened with a slight look of anxiety, for she had entertained some hopes that Langford had communicated his purpose to her father before he came to seek her; but still her apprehensions of opposition from one who loved her so much, and esteemed him so highly, were not great, and she only replied, "But, of course, you do not wish our engagements to be concealed from my father?"