And then, in that strange golden forenoon, which seemed at the same time one hasty moment and a long day, full of events, Mrs. Renton, amazed, found her son again stooping over her, and received the astonishing news. It was some time before she could take it in. ‘What,’ she said, ‘Mary? I will never believe it is Mary. You are making fun of me, Ben.’
‘It is a great deal better than fun, mother,’ he said. ‘I could not go till it was settled; and now there is only ten minutes or so to kiss us and bless us, and thank me for giving you such a daughter. She has been a daughter to you already for so long.’
‘Of course she has,’ said the bewildered woman. ‘Mary! it’s like your sister. I can’t think it’s quite right, do you know, Ben. I should as soon have thought of you marrying Alice, or——’
‘Frank might object to that, my dear mother,’ said Ben.
‘But, Mary—you are sure you are not making one of your jokes? And after all, I can’t think what you see in her, Ben,’ Mrs. Renton said, with a little eagerness. ‘She was never very pretty,—not like that beautiful Mrs. Rich, you know, or those sort of women,—and not even very young. She must be seven-and-twenty, if she is a day. Let me see, Frank was born in July, and she in the December after. She will be seven-and-twenty on her next birthday. And nothing to make up for it—— ’
‘Except that there is nobody else in the world,’ said Ben, smiling at Mary, who had just come into the room.
‘Nobody else in the world! I don’t know what you mean. Not to say a word against Mary, but you might have done a great deal better, Ben.’
‘And so he might, godmamma,’ said Mary, with the gravity of happiness, though Ben had her hand in his.
‘Yes, my dear,’ said Mrs. Renton, in perfect good faith, ‘a great deal better. You always have the sense to see things. If I were you, I would reflect a little longer before I announced it, or did anything more in the matter, Ben.’
The answer Ben made to this proposal was to draw his betrothed close to his mother’s bedside within his own supporting arms. ‘Give her a kiss, mamma, and say God bless you,’ he said, bending down his own face close to Mary’s. And the mother, quite confused and bewildered, did as she was told, crying a little, and not knowing what to think. And before any one knew, Ben was gone again, off by express to join the steamer which sailed from Liverpool that night. He had just time; everything belonging to him having gone on before with poor Hillyard, who knew nothing about this morning’s expedition. And before noon the episode was all over, and the Frank Rentons once more in the foreground, and Mary reading the newspaper as if such a wild inroad of romance into the midst of reality had never been.