“Yes; for papa has to go back to attend to his Quarter Sessions.”
“I am very, very sorry you are going. I had hoped you would stay much longer. These three weeks have flown like three days.”
“Why, Mr. Thornton, I declare you are throwing my flowers away as fast as you gather them.”
“So I am,” he said. “The fact is I hardly know what I am doing.” The colour was blazing into his face, and his heart beating wildly. “Florence,” he cried, flinging himself upon his knees beside her, “forgive me if I speak rashly or wildly—I don’t know how to speak. I don’t know what to tell you—but I love you dearly, dearly, with my whole heart. I cannot tell—I hope—I think you may like me. Do not say no, I implore you. If you do not like me to speak so wildly,
tell me so; but don’t say you will not love me. Tell me you will love me—if you can.”
Florence was young, and was taken by surprise, or perhaps she might have stopped the young gentleman at once; but after all it is not unpleasant to a pretty girl to see a good-looking young lad at her feet and to listen to his passionate words of homage. At length, when he seemed to come to a pause, she replied: “Oh, Mr. Thornton, please, please do not talk so. This is so sudden. Our parents know nothing of this!”
“Do you love me—tell me?”
“We are too young. You really must not—”
“It does not matter about being young.”
“Oh, do not speak any more.”