“That is like Humpty Dumpty,” said Marion, with a laugh. “But I don’t think there can be any mistake about the love we feel. ’Tis like being in the sunshine; we don’t mistake sunshine for moonlight, or starlight, or for all the lamps and candles that ever burned.”
“Ah! then you admit that we may be mistaken in the object for which our love is felt. And that comes to the same thing after all.”
“But I don’t say that; I’m not sure of that,” said Marion thoughtfully, and looking somewhat troubled. “Besides, even if you loved ... some one who did not love you, or was not worthy of your love—still, you know, you would have loved. You could afford to be unhappy after that! If I were a common pebble, and some enchanter transformed me into a diamond, he might crush me afterward: I should have been all I could be.”
Mr. Grant sighed. “You young folk know how to be eloquent,” said he. “And you may be right, my dear—you may be right. I should like to think so. I suppose every one is not born with the power of loving; but, for those who are, what you say may be true. And possibly Providence may so order things—I am an old-fashioned fellow, you see, and believe in Providence—that those who can truly love are never ignobly disappointed. They will have griefs, no doubt—for it would be an empty world that was without those—but not ignoble ones. There may be something purifying and divine in a real love, that makes it like an angel, before whose face all that is base and paltry flees away.” After saying this, Mr. Grant was silent for a little while; and Marion, glancing at his face, fancied that he was thinking of some vanished love of his own, and she would have liked to have asked him about it, but could not find words to do it in. Presently he looked round at her, and said, with a smile:
“You, at any rate, have a right to your belief, my dear. It comes to you by inheritance. Your mother, I am sure, made a love-match.”
“Oh, yes! But mamma was born for such things—to love and be loved I mean. I sometimes think though, she would not have loved my father so much, if she had not first met Mr. Tom Grantley. She imagined she was in love with him, you know; just for a little while; and he must have been a grand man; he made her heart wake up—he made her know what love was, without making her really love him. So, when she met father, she knew how to give herself to him. Wouldn’t it have been strange if she had married Mr. Grantley? But she would not have been happy. How strange if she had married him! I could not bear to have any other father but my own father; I shall never care for any one as I did for him.”
“Indeed, it would have been strange if she had married Mr. Grantley,” returned the old gentleman musingly. “But as you say, ’tis doubtless better as it is. In my life, many things have happened that I would gladly have averted, or altered: but looking back on them now I can see how they may have been for the best. For instance, I am very fond of you, my dear Marion—you won’t mind me saying this, will you?—and I might wish that I had some substantial right to be fond of you, and to expect you to be fond of me: that you might have been my niece or daughter, or my young sister—my step-sister, let us say. But, after all, I would have nothing altered; and I dare say you will give me, out of free generosity, as much affection as if you were my kinswoman.”
“Oh, at least as much,” said Marion, smiling. “And I might like you even more than I do if there were some good reason why I should not like you so much.”
“I doubt if I have audacity enough to take you at your word ... and yet, I don’t know! I might devise some plot against you which you would only discover after my death; as people leave hampering legacies to their survivors, who are then obliged to grin and bear it. Will you like me better on the mere chance of such a calamity.”
“It is very hard to forgive benefits; and I’m afraid that this is the only sort of calamity you will bring down upon me.”