Sitting in the window, as I fancied I sat then, and watching the man who ministered so tenderly to the sick girl, I had thought there was love in his voice and manner, but when the cobwebs of delirium cleared away the past seemed very vague and misty, and sometimes I doubted if I had seen or heard anything, or if Tom’s lips had touched mine more than once as a brother’s lips never touch those of his sister. Now, however, there could be no mistaking his voice, or the fact that he had wound his arm around my waist and drawn me nearer to him.
“Norah,” he began, “do you remember that summer afternoon years ago when you walked with me down the lane, and said good-by at the stile when the stage stopped to take me up? Yes, you remember it, and how the boy cried, and the wild words he spoke about having meant you for his wife—you, who were ten months his senior, and felt yourself to be his grandmother. Norah, I was in earnest then, and there was such a pain in my heart as I watched you standing on the stile and waving your hand to me, and to myself I said: ‘Please God if I can’t have her, I’ll never have anybody.’ Then the years went by and changes came, and the boy-love seemed to have died out, though I never saw a fair English face in India that I did not contrast it with yours, and say to myself: ‘Norah’s is the best, though possibly not so pretty.’ I was a man among men. I had money and social position, and more than one mother wanted me for her daughter, and I knew it, and, being human, was flattered by it somewhat, but always remembered you and the summer afternoon when we said good-by at the stile in Middlesex. Then Miss Elliston came to India. It was an honor to be noticed by her, and I was thus honored, and as the friend of her favorite brother was often at their rooms and came to know her well. She is very handsome, and though she may be cold and haughty to those whom she considers her inferiors, she is sweet and gracious to her equals, and was the most popular girl in Calcutta. I was much in her society, and liked her better than any girl I knew, and, as was natural, our names came at last to be mentioned together, and I was looked upon as a suitor for her hand; but I never was, Norah—never.”
I started then, but the arm around my waist tightened its hold, and he continued:
“I was not a marrying man, I thought, and whenever I did dream of a home and wife, your face came always before me as it looked that day when you watched me going from you. ‘It is not like that now,’ I said to myself. ‘Norah must have grown old in these dozen years;’ and then I sent for the photograph, which, when it came, astonished me so much by its sweet, pensive beauty and girlish fairness that I changed my mind, and thought I was a marrying man, and that no other face than that of the original could ever satisfy me. So I came home and found you more than I had hoped. I saw at once that you, too, associated me with Miss Elliston, and as a means of winning you I suffered you to be deceived. Miss Elliston is nothing to me—never can be anything to me, even if you now refuse to select your room at Rose Park. Which shall it be, Norah? Will you take the pretty suit, you supposed was intended for another, and will you let me be somewhere in the vicinity, say within call, in case you need me?”
It was a novel way of asking me to be his wife, but it was like Tom, and I understood what it meant, and for a moment sat perfectly still, too much overcome to speak. Then, as Tom pressed me for an answer, and said:
“Come, Norah, I am bound to marry somebody so which shall it be, Miss Elliston or you?” I answered:
“I think it better be I; but oh, Tom, I never dreamed of such a thing,” and then, of course, I cried, and Tom soothed and quieted me in the usual way, and we sat and talked it over, and I found that I must have loved him all my life, and he was certain he had loved me since the first day of his arrival at the old home in Middlesex, when he chased me with an apple-tree worm, which he succeeded in dropping into my neck, and for which I rewarded him with a long scratch on his face.
It was settled that we should be married sometime in June, and that Archie’s mother and Lady Darinda should be invited to the wedding, which otherwise was to be void of guests, with the exception of the Misses Keith and Mrs. Trevyllan. How surprised these last were, and how glad, and how much they made of me as the future Mrs. Gordon, I went and told Lady Fairfax myself, and she insisted upon giving me a wedding, and saying that I should be married from her house in Grosvenor Square. But to that Tom would not listen. A quiet wedding suited him better, with no fuss and worry, and no one to criticise.
Lady Darinda was bitterly disappointed, and was not to be appeased until Tom consented to allow her to give us a party after our return from Switzerland, for we were going there on the bridal trip—going to see the glorious Alps once more, with their ever-changing hues, and the silvery lakes which sparkle in the sunshine like silver jewels on a bed of green. Oh! that lovely June morning, when the air was filled with the perfume of roses and violets, and not a cloud hung over Kensington. My wedding morning, and it comes back to me so freshly now, with the song of the robin in the tree by my window, the dewy sweetness of the air, the deep blue of the sky, the smiles, and tears, and kisses of Mrs. Trevyllan and the Misses Keith, the loud, decided talk of Lady Darinda, the quiet “God bless you, child, and make you happy,” of Archie’s mother when she was ushered into my room, for both ladies came to the house and went with me to the church, on the street just around the corner, where Tom met me, radiant and happy, and so handsome in his new suit “right from Paris,” and the old saucy, teasing smile in his eyes and about his mouth, as he looked down upon me and heard me promise to love, honor, and obey. There were no tears at my wedding, and I trust no sorry hearts, though Miss Lucy Elliston was there with her brother Charlie, mere lookers-on, and when the ceremony was over and we were going down the aisle, she confronted Tom laughingly, and said:
“I meant to see you married whether you invited me or not.”