A DISAPPOINTED LOVER.
Laura Malcolm remained at the Manor-house. Mr. Clare, the vicar, had persuaded her to relinquish her idea of going into lodgings in the village. It would be a pity to abandon the good old house, he argued. A house left to the care of servants must always suffer some decay; and this house was full of art treasures, objects of interest and of price which hitherto had been in Laura’s charge. Why should she not stay in the home of her girlhood till it was decided whether she was to rule there as mistress, or to abandon it for ever?
‘Your remaining here will not compromise your freedom of choice,’ said Mr. Clare kindly, ‘if you find before the end of the year that you cannot make up your mind to accept John Treverton as a husband.’
‘He may not ask me,’ interjected Laura, with a curious smile.
‘Oh yes, he will. He will come to you in good time to offer you his heart and hand, you may be sure, my dear. It cannot be a difficult thing for any young man to fall in love with such a girl as you, and it seems to me that this John Treverton is very worthy of any woman’s regard. I see no reason why your marriage should not be a love match on both sides, in spite of my old friend’s eccentric will.’
‘I’m afraid that can never be,’ answered Laura, with a sigh. ‘Mr. Treverton will never be able to think of me as he might of any other woman. I must always seem to him an obstacle to his freedom and his happiness. He is constrained to assume an affection for me, or to surrender a splendid fortune. If he is mercenary he will not hesitate. He will take the fortune and me, and I shall despise him for his readiness to accept a wife chosen for him by another. No, dear Mr. Clare, there is no possibility of happiness for John Treverton and me.’
‘My dear child, if you are convinced that you cannot be happy in this marriage, you are free on your part to refuse him,’ said the vicar.
Laura’s pale cheek crimsoned.
‘That would be to doom him to poverty, and to frustrate his cousin’s wish,’ she answered, falteringly. ‘I should hate myself if I could be so selfish as to do that.’
‘Then, my dear girl, you must resign yourself to the alternative: and if John Treverton and you are not as passionately in love as the young people who defy their parents and run away to Gretna Green to be married—or did when I was a young man—you may at least enjoy a sober kind of happiness, and get on as well together as the princes and princesses whose marriages are arranged by cabinet councils and foreign powers.’