"Should you be sorry if I were to die one of these days, Barbara," inquired the Ranger, "like one of those flowers?"
"Sorry! have I ever appeared ungrateful, Robin? When first I came here, you used to be so kind me:—indeed, you are always kind—only I fear lately you are displeased with me about something or other. You have avoided me—are you angry, Robin?"
"Indeed I am not; nor do I forget how often you have driven away the 'shadows' that used to come over me."
"And do you—I mean, do you esteem me as much as ever?"
Robin looked earnestly into her face, and then taking her hand, gently replied:—
"I do esteem you, as you term it, more than ever; but I also love you. When a little helpless thing, I took you from your father's arms: I loved you then as a parent would love a child. When Lady Cecil took you under her care, and I saw you but seldom, my heart leaned towards the daughter of my best friend with a brother's love. And when, as I have just said, the sunlight of your smile, and the gentleness of your young girlish voice, dispelled much melancholy from my mind, I thought—no matter what. But now the case is altered—you see in me a mere lump, a deformed creature, a being unseemly to look upon, a wretch——!"
"Robin Hays, you wrong yourself," interrupted Barbara; "I do not see you thus, nor think you thus. The raven is not a beautiful bird, nor hath it a sweet voice, yet it was welcomed and beloved of the prophet Elijah."
"So it was, Barbara; but why?—because it was useful to him in his hour of need. Think you that, in the time of his triumph and prosperity, he would have taken it to his bosom, as if it had been a dove?"
"I do not see why he should not," she said: "God is so good, that he never takes away one beauty without bestowing another; and the raven's glossy wing might be, to some, even more beautiful than the purple plumage of the dove: at all events, so excellent a man would not be chained by mere eye-beauty, which, after all, passeth quickly. Though I think it was very uncourteous of Mr. Fleetword to say, in my hearing, Robin, that the time would come when Mistress Constance would be as plain-favoured as old Dame Compton, whose countenance looks like the worm-eaten cover of Solomon Grundy's Bible."
"Ah, Barbara! you are a good girl: but suppose I was as rich as I ought to be before thinking of marrying—and supposing you came to the knowledge of your father, and he agreed—and supposing Mistress Cecil did not say nay—supposing all this——?"