“Now, Erminie, that’s no answer at all,” said Ranty, taking down the hands. “You don’t know what a capital husband I’ll make. You can’t begin to have the remotest idea of it, you know. Come, Erminie, say yes—there’s a good girl.”
“Oh, Ranty!”
“Yes, I know; girls always look flustered in cases like this; but, somehow, they manage to say yes, after all. Now, Erminie, if you don’t say yes, I’ll go right straight off for the Prussic acid—mind that!”
“Well, yes, then,” said Erminie, blushing, and laughing, and hiding her face on his shoulder.
“Gloria in excelsis! alleluia! hurrah! Oh, Erminie! my own little darling! you have made me the happiest man from here to the antipodes. Oh, Erminie! I knew you would, all along! I always thought you had too much good sense to reject me for a puppy like the Honorable Augustus!” exclaimed Ranty, in a rapture. “Oh, Erminie! I’ll give you leave to cowhide me within an inch of my life if I ever give you a cross look or word again! Oh, Erminie—”
The sudden opening of the library-door cut short his interminable string of interjections in which Ranty would have indulged, and the next moment, Lord De Courcy stood looking with grave surprise on the two lovers.
“Ah! beg your pardon,” he said, blandly, as Ranty sprung to his feet. “I was not aware there was any one here. Excuse me for interrupting you.” And with a bow and an almost imperceptible smile, he was turning away, when Ranty stepped forward, and said:
“Hold on, my lord. There’s a little matter to be arranged here, which may as well be done now as any other time. I love your daughter and have told her so, and your daughter loves me, and has told me so; and all we want is your lordship’s consent to our union. I may not be quite her equal in wealth, and rank, and all that sort of thing, in your eyes; but as a free-born American citizen, and an independent ‘sovereign’ in my own right, and possessing a strong arm, a stout heart, and a clear conscience, I feel myself as good as the best lord, duke, or Sir Harry in all Great Britain; and so, my lord, if you will give me your daughter, I will try to prove myself worthy of the gift.”
This plain, straight-forward speech, delivered with head erect, shoulders thrown back, and Master Ranty drawn up to the full extent of his six feet odd inches, evidently did not displease the earl. He turned to Erminie, whose blushing face was hid again, and said, with a smile:
“And what says my little girl? Has she authorized her old friend to say all this?”