“Yes, and you wished I had been one when you found out who I really was. Oh, I don’t blame you, Miss Dolly—it was very natural; but I hope now, my dear,” he said, with a tone that was quite fatherly, though he did not intend it to be so, “that you are not so sorry, but rather glad on the whole to know Gus Markham, who is not so bad as you thought.”
Dolly was surprised to be called “my dear;” but at his age was it not quite natural?
“Oh,” she said, faltering, “I never thought you were bad, Sir Augustus; you have always been very kind, I know.”
But she could not say she was glad of his existence, which had done so much harm to—other people; even though in her heart she had a liking for Sir Gus, the queerest little man that ever was!
“I have tried to be,” he said; “and I think they all feel I have done my best to show myself a real friend; but there comes a time when one wants something more than a friend, and, Dolly, I think that time has come now.”
Well! it was a little odd, but she did not at all mind being called Dolly by Sir Gus. She looked at him with a little surprise, doubtful what he could mean. They were by this time quite near the village and the Rectory gate.
“I think,” he said, “that if I don’t get married, my dear, I shall never be able to stand another winter at Markham. It nearly killed me last year.”
“Married!” she cried, her voice going off in a high quaver of surprise and consternation. If her father had intimated a similar intention she could scarcely have been more astonished. This is what everybody had consoled themselves by thinking such a man was never likely to do.
“Yes, married,” he said. “Don’t you think you know, Dolly, a dear little girl that would marry me, though I am not so young nor so handsome as Paul? You see it is not Paul now, it is me; and though he was handsomer and taller, I don’t think he was nearly so good-tempered as I am, my dear. I give very little trouble, and I should always be willing to do what my wife wanted to do—or at least almost always, Dolly—and you would not get that with many other men. Haven’t you ever thought of it before? Oh, I have, often. I went through all the others to-day, just to give myself a last chance, to see if, at the last moment, there was any one I liked better; but there was none so nice as you. You see, I have not done it without thought. Now, my pretty Dolly, my little dear, just say you will marry me before the winter, and to-morrow we can settle all the rest.”
He had taken her hand as they stood together at the gate. Dolly’s amazement knew no bounds. She was so bewildered that she could only stand and gaze at him with open mouth.