Her hand, which had just then taken hold of his, in the warmth of her wish to serve him, now dropped down as with the stroke of death—her face lost its colour—and she leaned against the desk by which they were standing, without uttering a word.
“What means this change?” said he; “Do you not wish me happy?”
“Yes,” she exclaimed: “Heaven is my witness. But it gives me concern to think we must part.”
“Then let us be joined,” cried he, falling at her feet, “till death alone can part us.”
All the sensibility—the reserve—the pride, with which she was so amply possessed, returned to her that moment. She started and cried, “Could Lord Elmwood know for what he sent me?”
“He did,” replied Rushbrook—“I boldly told him of my presumptuous love, and he has given to you alone, the power over my happiness or misery. Oh! do not doom me to the latter.”
Whether the heart of Matilda, such as it has been described, could sentence him to misery, the reader is left to surmise—and if he supposes that it could not, he has every reason to suppose that their wedded life, was—a life of happiness.
He has beheld the pernicious effects of an improper education in the destiny which attended the unthinking Miss Milner.—On the opposite side, what may not be hoped from that school of prudence—though of adversity—in which Matilda was bred?
And Mr. Milner, Matilda’s grandfather, had better have given his fortune to a distant branch of his family—as Matilda’s father once meant to do—so that he had given to his daughter