“The truth is, Miss Wynn, I’ve had a surfeit of tropical scenery, and was only too glad once more to feast my eyes on the hill and dale landscapes of dear old England. I know none to compare with these of the Wyeside.”
“It’s very pleasing to hear you say that—to me especially. It’s but natural I should love our beautiful Wye—I, born on its banks, brought up on them, and, I suppose, likely to—”
“What?” he asks, observing that she has paused in her speech.
“Be buried on them!” she answers, laughingly. She intended to have said “Stay on them for the rest of my life.”
“You’ll think that a very grave conclusion,” she adds, keeping up the laugh.
“One at all events very far off—it is to be hoped. An eventuality not to arise, till after you’ve passed many long and happy days—whether on the Wye, or elsewhere.”
“Ah! who can tell? The future is a sealed book to all of us.”
“Yours need not be—at least as regards its happiness. I think that is assured.”
“Why do you say so, Captain Ryecroft?”
“Because it seems to me, as though you had yourself the making of it.”