"Oh, you are good!" she interrupted impulsively, "and you don't think that Hugh would be throwing himself away on me, do you?"
"Throwing himself away?" I cried, and at that moment I thought of Miss Treherne, whom I had seen at Church on the previous Sunday morning, and mentally I compared them. The Squire's daughter was a staid-looking spinster of about thirty years of age. She had never been beautiful, and no one by the utmost stretch of imagination could call her attractive.
"If I were Hugh," I said, "I would not give you up for anything or anybody, and I should regard myself as the luckiest fellow in the world to get you."
She laughed like a child. It was easy to see that I had gladdened her heart, and when a few minutes later she walked away hanging on her lover's arm, I heaved a sigh of envy.
"They are right, both of them," I said to myself. "What is all the money in the world, and all the rank, compared to the infinite trustfulness and affection of those two?
"Surely God, if there is a God, wants them to be happy," I reflected, and I formed a sort of quixotic resolution that I would speak to Mr. Lethbridge, and try to persuade him to withdraw his opposition to his son's marriage with this pure, sweet, simple-minded country girl.
I did not carry my resolution into effect, however. The next day I suffered a kind of reaction from the little excitement caused by what had taken place, and immediately afterwards it seemed as though all my thoughts and resolutions were scattered to the wind.
"Please, sir," said Simpson, entering my room, "here's the paper, sir. I thought you might like to look at it, sir."
"Is there anything particular in it, Simpson?"
"Yes, sir; war is declared, sir."