“Nevertheless, I feel that I owe to you something,” continued Wilton; “and in one way I can do a little towards confessing my obligation to you—and that is, by being candid with you. The world is full of disappointments—the sun resting on a valley field makes it appear a rich expanse of golden grain, but when we reach it, we find it a poor piece of grass land, thin, weedy, and worthless. Of such are some of our glowing expectations; they burn brightly in the eye of hope, but, like a brilliant flame consuming a flimsy material, realise nothing but ashes. I have had great hopes, high dreams, and proud anticipations—they have become nothing but dust. Now, Mr. Vivian, in the position in which I have been and am living, it is but natural, in suing for my daughter’s hand, you should expect with her at least a moderate fortune. She would have had a liberal dowry, but that expectations I have entertained will, to an almost inevitable certainty, not be realised. She will, therefore, have nothing from me upon her marriage—not a shilling. While she remains with me, of course she will share the comforts of the luxurious style in which we now live; but if she quits for a humbler position, she must accept its trials and its troubles, for no aid must she or her husband expect from me. One moment, Mr. Vivian,” he exclaimed, as Hal was about eagerly to offer some observation—“one moment more. I am informed your uncle’s son has returned from abroad, and has taken possession of everything—no will having been found—to the utter destruction of all the expectations you entertained of succeeding to his business and property. Is this true?”
“It is quite true!” replied Hal, firmly.
“You have, then, to depend alone upon your own exertions for the future?” continued Wilton.
“Entirely so,” responded Hal.
“How far, then, does the disinterested character of your love for my daughter extend?” inquired Wilton, fixing a steadfast look upon him.
“Thus far, sir: that as she, in all her sweet and pure integrity, is the only prize I covet, I shall be infinitely prouder and happier in taking her to my heart as my own beloved wife, dowerless, than did she have the settlement of a princess.”
How gratefully and fondly Flora’s eyes beamed on Hal’s animated face, as he, with enthusiastic emphasis, uttered those words.
“That I can well believe,” said Wilton, dryly. “The romance of youth is capable of all that; but, Mr. Vivian, can you transplant her to such a home as this or Harleydale? Can you provide her with a town house and a carriage, with a country mansion, with its well-ordered garden, spacious parks, surrounded by upland and dell, by sloping vales, meandering streams, by all the charming accessories and beauties of English landscape? Are you, I say, prepared to do this?”
Flora stole to her father’s side, and, placing her hand upon his shoulder gently, said, with a face of rosy hue—
“Papa, dearest, to me all those beauties would be as nothing if not shared by one—I—by—by those I—to whom I am attached!”