What more she might have said, he never knew, for the door opened, and Marion came softly in with a letter in her hand. Her mother rose, but she did not move away from George, as was her first impulse, nor did she try to hide her tears. It would have been no use, for they were falling like rain over her face. Marion stood still at the door, looking at them with wonder and a little fear.
George went to her, and taking her hand led her to her mother. He was very pale and his lips trembled as he said,—
“Mother, will you let me speak to her now?”
What she might have answered she could not tell. She dropped into her seat with a little cry, and in a moment Marion was kneeling before her, and then so was George; and, of course, there was only one way in which it could end.
Mrs Calderwood said afterwards that Marion had let herself be too easily won. Marion laughed when she said this.
“I think, mother, I was won long before that day,” said she.
But at the moment the mother could only give her consent. In a little, when George had taken his wife, that was to be, to the other end of the room, Mrs Calderwood picked up the letter which Marion had let fall, and opened it mechanically, letting her eye fall on the written words while her thoughts were elsewhere. But before she had read many words she uttered an exclamation and hastily went out of the room.
Her pride was to be spared at any rate. Nobody had supposed that she would be too easily won. The letter was from Mr Dawson; and by rights she ought to have had it before George came, for it was to bespeak her good word for him that he had written.
It was just, “Let by-ganes be by-ganes. Give your daughter to my son, and she shall be welcomed among us with all the love and honour of which she is worthy—and more cannot be said than that.”
Mrs Calderwood read it and read it again, and her wonder grew. Changed! Surely if ever a man was changed, George Dawson must be to write to her such a letter as that. But when she showed it to her daughter, Marion was only surprised at her amazement. All these kind words did not seem strange to her. She had never heard any but kind words from him.