The breakfast is tearless, but a little strained, remarkable only for an able and grandiloquent speech from Robert, which is however somewhat marred at the close by the arrival of a costume from Madame Armine at the eleventh hour, which entails the reopening of trunks and much excitement and fuss.
Miss Darcy follows the bride up to her room, where she finds her gazing blankly out of the window alone. She steals behind her and puts her arms round her neck.
"Heaven bless you, my child, and give you every joy, every happiness in the new life that lies before you!"
"Thank you, auntie darling; thank you also for your goodness to me, and for all you have ever done and suffered for me and mine. I think I never felt it, never understood it, until now," she adds, breaking down a little at last. "But I'll never forget—never! You have been the dearest, the truest friend we have ever had, and one day you will meet with your reward."
"Not truer, my dear," Miss Darcy answers gravely, "than the friend, generous, strong, and unselfish, into whose hands Heaven put you but a few hours ago. You have a good husband, Addie, a truly good husband, my dear—one whom you can respect, honor, and obey all the days of your life. I am leaving you in his hands without a shadow of doubt, a twinge of apprehension. He may not have the outward polish, the surface-attraction of those born in the purple; but he is nevertheless a gentleman at heart—a gentleman in the true sense of the word, liberal, large-minded, incapable of a mean or ignoble act or thought. You feel that you believe me, don't you, dear, don't you?" she repeats, peering anxiously into the girl's wistful weary face.
"Yes—oh, yes!" Addie answers in a whisper. "I think I do, auntie, I think I do."
For during the last month the theory of Mr. Armstrong's motive in matrimony so unluckily broached by the keen-sighted Robert, and which had awakened her active contempt, daily lost hold of her mind. She had but little opportunity of studying his character, or even of ascertaining the bent of his sympathies and tastes: nevertheless she was forced to acknowledge to herself that, low-born as he undoubtedly was, Armstrong of Kelvick was not a snob, that, though he respected rank and its many attributes of power, he did not love a lord with the servile fondness of the British tradesman, and that the end and aim of his existence were not to have the gates of county society flung open to him—nor was that the motive which had urged him to marry her.
"I could not tell you before, dear," resumes Aunt Jo softly, drawing her niece to a chair beside her—"but now that you are a wife it is different—what your husband has done for you and yours. I can not even now tell you how delicate, how unobtrusively generous, he has been in all his dealings with our unfortunate affairs."
"I know, I know—at least I half guessed it all."
"I had a long conversation with him last night, Addie, after you had all gone to bed, and he then told me the arrangements he had made for the children's futures. Will you listen to them now, or would you rather hear of them from him?"