I was too much moved to reply.
"Now, child," she said gaily, "don't cry, or Cornelius, whom I hear coming down after you, will think I have been scolding my future sister- in-law."
"And would you not have the right to do so?" I asked, kissing her with mingled tenderness and reverence.
As she returned the embrace, Cornelius entered, and from the threshold of the door, looked at us with a delighted smile.
CHAPTER XIX.
How Mrs. Langton explained her conduct towards me, is more than I know; but it cannot have been to the dissatisfaction of Edward Thornton; for within two or three weeks they were married. They went to Italy on a matrimonial tour, and there they have resided ever since, leaving Mrs. Brand in happy and undisturbed possession of Poplar Lodge.
They thought not of us, and we thought not of them, nor of mortal creature, save Kate. The present effaced the past, and absorbed the future. Familiar affection may not have the romance and mystery of the passion which has given one soul and one heart to beings hitherto strangers; but it has a deeper tenderness and far more sacred purity. Love now sat with us at board and hearth; something unknown lingered at twilight-time in the shadow of the room, and morn and eve a charmed presence haunted every garden-path and bower.
Kate allowed us to dream away a few days, then suddenly startled us one evening, by saying quietly:
"Cornelius, when do you mean to write to Mr. Thornton?"
Cornelius started, and turned a little pale; my work dropped from my hands, and I sank back on my chair. Upon which he looked distracted, and seemed ready to quarrel with Kate for having started such an unwelcome subject.