Aurora laid her cousin's face upon her breast, and looked down, with a womanly, matronly glance, into those tearful blue eyes.
"Lucy, my darling," she said, "is it really and truly as I think—as I wish:—Talbot loves you?"
"He has asked me to marry him," Lucy whispered.
"And you—you have consented—you love him?"
Lucy Floyd only answered by a new burst of tears.
"Why, my darling, how this surprises me! How long has it been so, Lucy? How long have you loved him?"
"From the hour I first saw him," murmured Lucy; "from the day he first came to Felden. O Aurora! I know how foolish and weak it was; I hate myself for the folly; but he is so good, so noble, so——"
"My silly darling; and because he is good and noble, and has asked you to be his wife, you shed as many tears as if you had been asked to go to his funeral. My loving, tender Lucy, you loved him all the time, then; and you were so gentle and good to me—to me, who was selfish enough never to guess——My dearest, you are a hundred times better suited to him than ever I was, and you will be as happy—as happy as I am with that ridiculous old John."
Aurora's eyes filled with tears as she spoke. She was truly and sincerely glad that Talbot was in a fair way to find consolation, still more glad that her sentimental cousin was to be made happy.
Talbot Bulstrode lingered on a few days at Mellish Park;—happy, ah! too happy days for Lucy Floyd—and then departed, after receiving the congratulations of John and Aurora.