‘You love him very much, do you not?’ said her mother.
‘Very dearly,’ said Mary.
‘Mary, he has asked me this evening if you would be willing to be his wife.’
‘His wife, mother?’ said Mary in the tone of one confused with a new and strange thought.
‘Yes, daughter; I have long seen that he was preparing to make you this proposal.’
‘You have, mother?’
‘Yes, daughter; have you never thought of it?’
‘Never, mother.’
There was a long pause, Mary standing just as she had been interrupted in her night toilette, with her long, light hair streaming down over her white dress, and the comb held mechanically in her hand. She sat down after a moment, and clasping both hands over her knees, fixed her eyes intently on the floor; and there fell between the two a silence so intense, that the tickings of the clock in the next room seemed to knock upon the door. Mrs. Scudder sat with anxious eyes watching that silent face, pale as sculptured marble.
‘Well, Mary,’ she said at last.