“An English Protestant!” interrupted my father, “English! English! Do you hear that, Mrs. Harrington?”
“Thank Heaven! I do hear it, my dear,” said my mother. “But, Mr. Montenero, we interrupt—daughter of—?”
“Daughter of an English gentleman, of good family, who accompanied one of your ambassadors to Spain.”
“Of good family, Mr. Harrington,” said my mother, raising her head proudly as she looked at me with a radiant countenance: “I knew she was of a good family from the first moment I saw her at the play—so different from the people she was with—even Lady de Brantefield asked who she was. From the first moment I thought—”
“You thought, Mrs. Harrington,” interposed my father, “you thought, to be sure, that Miss Montenero looked like a Christian. Yes, yes; and no doubt you had presentiments plenty.”
“Granted, granted, my dear; but don’t let us say any more about them now.”
“Well, my boy! well, Harrington! not a word?”
“No—I am too happy!—the delight I feel—But, my dear Mr. Montenero,” said I, “why—why did not you tell all this sooner? What pain you would have spared me!”
“Had I spared you the pain, you would never have enjoyed the delight; had I spared you the trial, you would never have had the triumph—the triumph, did I say? Better than all triumph, this sober certainty of your own integrity. If, like Lord Mowbray—but peace be to the dead! and forgiveness to his faults. My daughter was determined never to marry any man who could be induced to sacrifice religion and principle to interest or to passion. She was equally determined never to marry any man whose want of the spirit of toleration, whose prejudices against the Jews, might interfere with the filial affection she feels for her father—though he be a Jew.”
“Though”—Gratitude, joy, love, so overwhelmed me at this moment, that I could not say another syllable; but it was enough for Mr. Montenero, deeply read as he was in the human heart.