"Where are you going, my child?"
"Before we walk to the castle," she replied, with an unusual vibration in her voice, "I must see about several things in the house." Without looking round, she left the room.
The candidate gazed after her rather inquisitively; he then seated himself by the pastor, and said, after folding his hands together,--
"My dear uncle, from the moment of entering your house, where I hope, God willing, to be your faithful companion in your holy office, I wish to take up my position on a foundation of truth; this should be the rule of conduct for all, but especially for one who takes upon him the life of a clergyman."
The pastor smoked his pipe, looking as if he scarcely understood what this was to lead to.
"My mother has often told me how much she desired that I should be united to you even more closely than by our present bond of relationship, and how she hoped my coming here might be the guidance of heaven, pointing out to me your daughter Helena as my true and Christian wife."
The pastor smoked on in silence, but his expression showed that this idea was neither new nor disagreeable to him.
"Often she has said," continued the candidate, "'How much I should rejoice if I could see you the support of my brother's old age, and if he could feel that in you he had a protector for his daughter when it should please God to call him to Himself.' Certainly," he continued, his eyes studying the expression of his uncle's face, "certainly the outward cares of life will not be hers."
"No," cried the old gentleman cheerfully, as he blew an enormous cloud from his pipe, "no, thank God! as far as that goes, I can depart in peace when my Master in heaven calls me. The small fortune I inherited from my uncle has greatly increased, for I have scarcely ever needed to spend more than the half of my income as pastor, and unless God should take away what He has given, when He calls me home my daughter need have no trouble as far as money is concerned."
"But," continued the candidate, an almost imperceptible smile of satisfaction playing around his thin lips, "'but she will still need a protecting arm, and if you could afford her this, perhaps in the very home where she has passed her childhood, how happy it would make me.' This is what my mother has often said to me."