Nor services to do, till you require,’
quoted John, tenderly. ‘Can I ever be happier than in obeying you?’
‘Do you know that it will be a great happiness to me not to leave the Manor,’ said Laura, presently. ‘You must not think me mercenary, or that I value a big house and a large fortune. It is not so, John. I could live quite contentedly on the income papa left me, more than contentedly, in a cottage with you; but I love the Manor for its own sake. I know every tree in the grounds, and have watched them all growing, and sketched and painted them until I almost know the form of every branch. And I have lived so long in these old rooms that I doubt if any other rooms would ever look like home. It is a dear old house, is it not, John? Will you not be very proud when you are the master of it?’
‘I shall be very proud of my wife when I can dare to call her mine. That will be pride enough for me,’ answered John, drawing her a little nearer to his heart. ‘And now, I suppose I ought to go and see Sampson, and tell him that everything is definitely settled. When are we to be married, love? My cousin died on the 20th of January. We ought not to delay our marriage longer than the end of this month.’
‘Let us be married on the last day of the month,’ said Laura. ‘It is the most solemn day in all the year. We shall never forget the anniversary of our wedding if it is on that day.’
‘I should never forget it in any case,’ answered John Treverton. ‘Let it be on that day, love. The closing year shall unite me to you for life. I shall see Mr. Clare to-night, and arrange everything.’
They were a long time saying ‘Good-bye,’ and just at the last John Treverton suggested that Laura should put on her hat and jacket and walk to the gates with him, so the first ‘Good-bye’ was wasted trouble. They were a long time walking to the gates, and the early winter night had come, and the stars were shining when they reluctantly parted. Laura tripped along the avenue with as light a foot as Juliet’s when she came to the friar’s cell to be married; John Treverton went slowly down the road towards Hazlehurst village, with his head bent upon his breast, and all the joy faded out of his face.
He found Mr. Sampson and his sister just sitting down to dinner, and was welcomed with enthusiasm by both.
‘Upon my soul, you’re a most extraordinary fellow,’ exclaimed the lawyer, after a good deal of handshaking. ‘You run off in no end of a hurry, promising to come back in a week or two at latest, and for six months we see no more of you; and you don’t even favour your family solicitor with a line to say why you don’t come. There are not many men in England who would play fast and loose with such chances as yours. Your cousin, when he made that curious will of his, told me you had been wild, but I was not prepared for such wildness as this.’
‘Really, Tom,’ remonstrated Miss Sampson, blushing the salmon pink peculiar to sandy-haired beauty, ‘you have no right to talk to Mr. Treverton like that.’