"Ah, Rupert, would they like to have us stay?" she asked, with an eager look up into his face, for he was standing beside the low chair in which she was seated.
"Yes," he said, smiling down on her; "and I see you would like it too."
"Oh no, not unless you please; I mean I should prefer whatever would be most for the pleasure and happiness of my dear husband."
"Thank you, love," he said, bending down to caress her hair and cheek; "then we will stay here at least for the present, for I perceive that will be agreeable to all parties. But whenever you weary of it, and think you would be happier in a home of your own, you must tell me so without reserve. Promise me that you will."
"Yes, señor," she returned, gayly, "I promise; but the time will never come till I have learned to do all housewifely duties just as your dear mother does."
Her words gave him great pleasure, and she saw with delight that they did. She sprang up in a pretty, impulsive way she had, threw her arms round his neck, and gazing up into his face with eyes beaming with light and love, "Oh, my dear husband," she cried, "how good, how kind you are to me always, always!"
"I should be a brute if I were anything else to you, my precious little darling!" he said, holding her close, with many a fond caress.
Rupert was again devoting himself to business with all the old energy and faithfulness.
Don, unable to decide what was best suited to his capacity and inclination, waited for some sort of opening, and in the mean time resumed some of his former studies, and spent a good deal of his leisure in the society of his sisters and Dr. Landreth's relative and guest, Miss Flora Weston.