Was I right?

by Mrs. O. F. Walton

Miss Richards had evidently noticed my embarrassment, for she said kindly, as she wished me good-bye:

"I hope I have not troubled you, May dear, but my heart is so full of anxiety about Claude just now, that I have spoken perhaps more strongly than I ought to have done."

I went home very perplexed and troubled, but the next day my thoughts were turned into an entirely fresh channel by the sudden illness of my dear father. I will not dwell upon the sad time which followed those days and nights of alternate hope and fear, and then the close to our watching, and the terrible realisation that Maggie and I were amongst the number of the fatherless children, prayed for, Sunday after Sunday, in the Litany.

Miss Richards was very kind to me during that time of trouble, giving me advice and help as I needed them, and relieving me greatly from the sense of heavy responsibility which rested on me.

Claude was still from home, but he wrote a kind little note of sympathy to me, when he heard of my father's death. He said he was very sorry that he was away at the time; had he been at home he would have done all in his power to save me any unnecessary care and anxiety in my time of sorrow.

I tried to hope that this was only brotherly sympathy and kindness, such as Claude had always shown me from childhood. I answered the letter by a short note, thanking him for his kind expression of sympathy, and telling him a little of our future plans—how Maggie was going to live with her aunts in the old Manor House at Branston, and how I hoped very soon to obtain a situation as governess or companion, where I could earn enough money to keep me in comfort and independence. By return of post came a second letter from Claude. I almost trembled when I saw his handwriting on the envelope; I had not intended to open a correspondence with him. And when I took the letter from the envelope, and saw its length, I was still more troubled and afraid. Then I read the letter, and when I had read it once, I read it again, and yet again. And now this letter lay on the table before me, still unanswered, and post-time was drawing nearer and nearer. I looked at it once more, although I knew almost every word of it already.

Claude began by stating his utter disapproval of my scheme of obtaining a situation as companion or governess. I was not fitted for it, and he would never allow it to be carried out. And then he went on to tell me that he had far different plans for my future—plans which had mingled with his boyish dreams, and which had been for years the one idea of his life.

And then he told me how he loved me, how there was no one on earth that he had ever cared for except myself, and how he felt that the time had now come to make me his wife, and to take me to a home of my own, where I should be taken care of, and cherished, and loved, more than any wife had ever been before. He said it was hard for him to put into a letter all the feelings of his heart. He had never planned to tell me all this by writing, but he felt compelled to write off at once, as soon as he received my letter, and the more so as, by a curious coincidence, by the very same post he had heard of the sudden death of his uncle Charles, who had left him a large sum of money, quite sufficient, Claude said, to enable him to marry, and to take me to a comfortable home.

At the end of the week, he said, he hoped to be with me, but he could not wait till then to tell me all this, for he feared that I should in the meantime be answering some dreadful advertisement, and be making another and a very different engagement. He concluded by urging me to write by return of post, as he longed to know that the whole matter was finally settled and arranged.

The more I read this letter, the more persuaded I felt that Claude never, for a single moment, entertained the possibility of my refusing him; he seemed to look upon it as a matter of certainty that I should be only too glad to do as he asked me. He was evidently utterly unprepared for anything but an immediate and hearty acceptance of his offer.